The first thing I did was grind a little bit to get my full party on a more even playing field, mostly Akelray and Nazomi who'd fallen behind by 10 or so levels. With that done for the time, I proceeded to Black Mage Village to find out why the black mages joined Kuja. Once we got there, Vivi confronted one of the three remaining black mages, the leader, and he explained that Kuja told the black mages that if they followed him, he could extend their life time. Fearing inevitable death within the year of their making, they followed him and did his bidding. Feeling somewhat guilty though, the leader of the black mages tells us that Kuja's palace is in the desert to the east under the quicksand.
We stock up and head on over, and are immediately sucked into the sand. Rhek awakens in a prison cell in Kuja's underground castle. Well that sorta backfired, didn't it. Soon enough Kuja's voice enters Rhek's mind and Rhek is released to go obtain a stone for Kuja under the threat of killing the remaining four party members left behind in the palace. Why can't Kuja go get this stupid stone himself if he's so powerful? Well... because in this new land there's a magic barrier, no magic can be used. Well... that's gonna suck hard. I take my hard strikers Nazomi and Ichorid, and I take Cysra in case the barrier is lifted and I can use white magic. Anyway, I'll need someone tossing Hi-Potions out and it might as well be her. Plus she needs the AP to keep learning new summons.
We head on out in Kuja's stolen airship, the Hilda Garde which was made by Cid and stolen by his wife. How'd Kuja get it again...? Where's Cid's wife?
We head on out by way of airship but we're not in control. The two stupid clowns Zorn and Thorn are serving Kuja now, and they're in control. We land and I begin the long walk toward Oelivart in the desert. On the way I quickly regret bringing Cysra. She's still in her muted, distraught mode after the destruction of Alexandria and from time to time it will simply say, "Cysra cannot complete that command." This happens about 60% of the time, and when the command is to toss someone a Hi-Potion to keep them alive... well it sucks.
I took my strikers and gimpy WHM into the very weird castle. Almost all the enemies are the same, a mummy looking closet that opens a door, releasing a new mob. The new mob is one of my eight party members. If the mob happens to be one of the people currently in my party, they die immediately. Ouch. It was tough but I worked through it. Along the way we were told a story of sorts through an old high tech projection system. Orbs would light up and tell a few facts as we came upon them. Basically I learned that there used to exist an old civilization which eventually peaked then started to die out through no fault of their own. During the crisis, they tried to build a ship to escape their world on. We see many prototypes eventually leading to the master design of the Invincible, Garland's ship. We finally come to the Gulug Stone, snag it, fight a boss and head back to Kuja's palace.
In the mean time, Cid breaks the other four party members out through a series of puzzles on a timer. Always hated any kind of timer in an RPG, sorta defeats the purpose of being able to sit back and solve things, I don't want to think fast, I want to think slowly. =P
With the rest of the party out, Rhek is not too keen on just handing over the stone when he returns, so Kuja just takes it by force, then steals Akelray and flees on his airship. We have no choice but to follow by boat, the one Cid gave us. We chase him all the way across the world to a place called Esto Gaza at the base of Mount Gulug. Trailing Kuja, we overhear him telling the clowns that he must stop Terra before he loses his soul. In the mean time, Kuja is having the girl drained of her Eidolons just like he did to Cysra before, but she's not sixteen so it's killing her. Before my party can interfere though, her moogle that's been her companion since birth comes out and takes his true form, an eidolon. He sacrifices himself to become the summon under her control and she schools the two little clowns and receives her final summon, Medeen.
The party comes down and rejoins Akelray against Kuja. Kuja ignores them and turns to leave instead. We try to follow but are stopped by a barrier, and behind us the clowns resurrect into their true form, a combined demon. We take care of him too, but can't follow Kuja in his airship. We're left behind with no course of action, but while trying to figure out what to do, we hear a woman's voice in a cell. It's Hilda. Cid makes amends and she turns him back into a human. Now he can concentrate, so we head on back to Lindblum to build another airship so we can go after Kuja. Hilda also tells us that while she was in captivity, Kuja laid out his whole plan to her.
Apparently Kuja is from another planet called Terra and there's a link to that planet in ours at a place called Shimmering Island. However, there exists a barrier currently so we can't use the gateway. We have to go to a place called Ipsen's Castle to unlock the secret to the gateway. Back to the forgotten continent we must go. But first we have to wait for Cid to complete the new airship, the Hilda Garde 3. In the mean time, Cysra is missing and Rhek goes to find her in Alexandria at her mother's grave site. She can finally talk again, thank fucking god. And while there we find the Bahamut summon stone for Cysra. Sweet.
We head on back and find that Cid has completed the Hilda Garde 3. FINALLY I have an airship and free range of the entire world. Woohoo!
But before I set out to find my way to this other world, I wanted to finish things here. First and foremost was to obtain all summons. I headed to Treno and got the Dark Matter to summon Odin off of the auction house. This left only one more summon in the game, Ark. Now. In order to get Ark I had to defeat Hades in the final dungeon and use his synth shop afterward to produce the Pumice Stone. The materials required are two Pumice Pieces. One I had already gotten from defeating a boss. The other I would have to get one of two ways. The first involved leveling up to around 70+ (my characters were about level 40) and defeating the hardest boss in the game. The second way was to get it from a hidden treasure chest which could only be obtained with a golden chocobo. I knew both ways would be huge time sinks but I decided to go the chocobo way. What followed was more hours than I care to admit of digging and upgrading my chocobo. EVENTUALLY I got him though and received the second Pumice Piece. Going the golden chocobo route also opened up many other treasures though and I was able to get Rhek and Slayn's end game weapons, as well as some really nice mage gear.
I was finally ready for Ipsen's castle which proved to be very interesting. The entire place wasn't too big or lengthy but it was all upside down, which made navigating it a bit confusing at times. What this also meant was that all my awesome end game weapons did zero damage. I switched to my level 1 dagger in the upside down world and started hitting mobs for 2k+ damage. Eventually we came to the heart of the castle and I retrieved four mirrors: earth, wind, fire and water. Garland, four elements, crystals... This all sounds so familiar.
I took the four mirrors and found four clues on them. Places all over the world where the elemental shrines and seals could be broken. I broke my party into four groups, and two of us headed to each shrine to break the seals simultaneously. After our task was complete, we headed toward the Shimmering Island and entered the worm hole, ship and all, in a sweet cut.
We all fly off in zero gravity and begin our decent into a worm hole through space and time, the ship is lost.
We landed on Terra, all separated, and Rhek is met by a man in black garb who we know to be Garland. Rhek doesn't know him but Garland obviously knows Rhek. Garland pressures Rhek to question who he is, what his purpose is. Rhek doesn't understand but after Garland leaves he realizes that he knows this place. That light blue light that he remembers from home is here. We meet up with a girl who looks EXACTLY like Rhek, she welcome's him 'home'. Rhek is thoroughly confused and follows her for a bit before meeting with Cysra. We come to the edge of a cliff and below we see a huge city, above we see the Invincible.
Cysra passes out and Rhek takes her to the local town to rest. Here, EVERYONE looks like Rhek, he questions a few people about why they look like him and they tell him, "We were built this way." Oh. Shit. So here we've been going through the entire game with Rhek feeling bad for Vivi because he feels like he doesn't have a soul, that his existence doesn't mean anything because he was created, he's a doll, a vessel. And now we find out that Rhek is the same. Wow.
It's hard for Rhek to hear this but he persists and continues to get information from this girl. We find out that everyone in the town are mere vessels, empty beings without souls, genomes as they are called. The people of Terra could no longer live on the dying planet, so they were put to sleep. They've been sleeping for a very long time. Garland was chosen as overseer to find a solution. He created the genomes to house the souls of the people of his world temporarily, perhaps permanently. But then something happened, a special genome emerged, one that was unique. The girl also explains that it is Garlands plan to merge the two planets of Gaia and Terra. He plans to use Gaia as the home of his people and to infuse the people of Gaia with the souls of the people of Terra. Everyone on Gaia will basically switch to living on Terra, the dead planet. Garland is ready to see Rhek.
While Rhek goes to Garland, he is beginning to realize that he is a member of the Terran race, and that his race is set on detroying the people of Gaia. That his people are responsible for the deaths of countless thousands, that he could have easily been part of that plan. In the mean time, Cysra awakens to tell the party that she now recalls that it was the Invincible that destroyed Maidin Sair ten years ago when she was a girl. Now she realizes that the Invincible was there when Cleyra was destroyed and when Alexandria was destroyed also. Kuja has been at the center of everything.
Rhek arrives at Garland's castle and Garland further explains things to Rhek. Long ago, that genome that was different, unique, was Kuja. Kuja aspired to be more, he had his own motives and desires, and he was powerful, wicked powerful. Garland changed his plans. He sent Kuja to Gaia to wreak as much havoc and death as possible. He also planted the Iifa tree and the Iifa tree would stop souls from being reborn on Gaia. The Mist is actually wandering souls that are stuck in limbo. Even though we destroyed the Iifa tree, it was only it's physical form that perished, it's still doing it's thing. We also learn that twelve years ago, another genome was made that was unique, and even more powerful than Kuja. Kuja saw this potential in the new genome and took him and dropped him off in Gaia before it became conscious. That genome was Rhek. Garland always planned his genomes with an expiration date, and one as vicious and unpredictable as Kuja could only serve it's purpose so long before it would turn on it's master. Garland designed Rhek to supplant Kuja when Rhek became more powerful. That time has finally come.
But Rhek won't have any of that. He was raised on Gaia, he has friends, he can't join Garland. Rather he wants to kill Garland. Seeing that he's not going to change, Garland instead attempts to remove Rhek's soul from the genome body. Rhek passes out.
When he finally starts to gain consciousness, it is only by the strength of his friendships and experiences that he is able to barely hold onto himself, barely keep Rhek. Eventually he solidifies his grasp on reality and stumbles out of a throne room. He passes Akelray and Vivi who ask if he needs help, he calls them brats and locks them away. He passes Nazomi and Ichorid, blows them off. He comes upon Slayn and Qu and helps them defeat a monster then continues on. He doesn't want help from anyone. He wants to be left alone, killing Garland is something he needs to do by himself. But when he is attacked by another monster and almost dies, it is Cysra who comes to save him. She tells him he's being stupid and that he needs help from his friends. After some drama he agrees and the party is back together. It's time to kick some Terra ass.
We turn right back around and head into Garland's keep. We fight our way in and eventually face off with Kuja's Silver Drake. After we kill that, we fight Garland himself. He's not so bad and goes down after a bit of a fight. Once Garland is down though, Kuja teleports in and tells Garland it's his time to reign and he kicks Garland off the cliff to die below. Then he turns to take care of my party. We deal with him swiftly, kicking his ass until, that is, he goes into his own Trance state. This was his plan all along apparently and now he's some ultra super powerful being with limitless power. He casts Ultima once and brings my party to it's knees. There's no one left in the world who can stand against him, and this is exactly the moment that Garland begins to speak to Kuja telepathically from beyond the grave. He's laughing at Kuja. He tells Kuja that all his work is for naught, because Kuja is a doll, and Kuja was made by Garland to die eventually. And that expiration date is soon, very soon. No amount of power can stop it, Kuja will be dead very soon.
This of course upsets Kuja greatly and he finally decides that if he can not live, then no one can. He begins casting a very destructive spell that starts to burn and break apart the entire planet.
We jump on the Invincible, grab the genomes from the village and get the hell out of there before the entire place goes up.
Finally we get to the wormhole and travel through to Gaia just as the planet dies. But it's a somber party that arrives back in Gaia. We know that Kuja will not be satisfied with just destroying Terra, he will come for Gaia. And it's not minutes after we arrive that the entire planet becomes covered in Mist. He's gathering the power of souls at the Iifa tree to cast his final spell. We head to Black Mage village to drop off the genomes and stock up one final time before facing off with Kuja.
I chose my final four to participate in the final showdown: Rhek, Slayn, Vivi and Akelray. Rhek just HAS to be there of course. Concerning Cysra, I could only bring one of the white mage and summoner hybrids and Akelray was always more on the white mage side, having only four summons, one being simply an all reflect spell in Carbuncle. I needed to have things like Full-Life, Curaga, and Dispel for my final fight. I felt bad but I just couldn't bring her. Concerning my choice of heavy hitters, well, Slayn is the only character that I've consistently seen hit for 9,999 damage without crit'ing. And that's because he utilizes the Magic Sword combo off of Vivi. Vivi himself is pretty decent damage but Slayn was the one I was really after and I needed Vivi to make him work. I took my party and did a bit of grinding and AP learning. I got everyone Auto-Regen and Auto-Haste. Those two abilities alone on my party of four could probably survive anything short of a straight party-wide death spell. I mean Auto-Regen is broken. If I simply cast a long cinematic summon or magic spell, a party member can regen from 1 health to over 3k health while the boss sits there and watches the cut scene like me. And perma-haste... well there's nothing wrong with that.
Anyways, I was satisfied once my lowest member, Akelray, hit about level 45. I took the Invincible to the glowing orb above the Iifa tree. But they didn't make it easy, I was immediately greeted by a MASSIVE swarm of silver drakes who attacked the Invincible. But I had backup out of no where.
Cid and about 20 other airships all broke from the clouds and murdered the drake army. Or rather put a big enough dent in their number that I could penetrate the massive orb with my ship.
We arrive at the final dungeon... Memoria. Now this is an interesting place. It is made up of the memories of all my party members. Pretty trippy castle. As I worked my way through the castle, I was greeted by many bosses, but the final four seemed all too familiar. I faced off with Mirasi who was fire chaos, but then I faced off with Tiamat (wind chaos), Kraken (water chaos) and Lich (earth chaos). I don't remember the name of the original fire fiend from FFI, but the other three are old buddies of mine. After I beat them I also got to face off with the optional boss, Hades. Once he was defeated he synthesized my Pumice Stone for me. FINALLY the last summon. I saved, tossed Cysra in my party and killed something with it just to see what all my effort was for. What I got was an airship, who transformed into a power ranger robot, who cast some godly array of light beams, which almost punched a hole in the earth, it hit so hard. With the planet quivering from the massive damage, the mob merely shook off the weak 2k and continued on, laughing. Grrr, the first weak summoner in FF history! That should be a guaranteed 9,999 damage! The problem with this game is that the summon power is based on how many copies of the stone you have in your inventory. So unless I go out and farm 256 stones, they won't be at their full potential. Weak.
Anyway, I swapped Cysra back out and approached the last boss fight. That summon should have been way strong seeing as how I had it for all of two minutes in the game. I forgot to mention that the whole time I was in this final dungeon though, Garland has been talking to Rhek in his head, guiding him. His final words to Rhek are, "Take care of Kuja and protect the Crystal." As we've been going through the castle, Garland explained that this process has taken place before. That Terra used to be the blue planet full of life and it was assimilated by Gaia five thousand years ago. Gaia became the blue planet full of life and everyone on Terra died. Now the cycle has come full circle. He also explains why Rhek has the memories of other people while in the castle. That all existence is one memory, from father to son over generations. Everything originates from one source, the beginning of everything, the Crystal. Kuja intends to destroy the crystal and snuff out existence itself.
We finally reach Kuja, first in the form of Deathguise, then in the form of Trance Kuja. He threw some nasty things at my party and had me reeling once or twice but I was able to handle him alright with my infinite regen and haste up. But once more, as we defeated him and he perished, he cast Ultima, this time really putting my party down for the count. After Kuja dies though, a new entity emerges called Necron. This is like the Nothing from The Never Ending Story. He simply consumes existence. Kuja opened the gate for him. Rhek tries to fight on but is too weak. Then at this point, the four party members I wasn't using sacrifice their strength to raise up the other four, reminiscent of FFIV.
We rise once more and show this Necron bastard that we're not ready to stop existing. Necron had some very nice evil things up his sleeve including something akin to bad breath, but I was prepared for it. I stacked the shit out of my abilities to negate as many status effects as possible. And the berserk on Slayn and Rhek only hurt him in the end. Rhek started going off for 9,999 a hit and the boss with 50k health went down pretty fast.
After the boss went down, the party is mysteriously teleported back to the edge of the Iifa tree and Cid comes to pick them up as the tree itself seems to be collapsing and lashing out in it's death throws. The party begins to leave when Rhek stops. He has to go back for his brother Kuja... After much argument, they let him go. Cysra makes him promise to come back to her.
Rhek does a nice acrobatic sequence avoiding all sorts of vines and monster activity on his way to the heart of the Iifa tree and eventually he comes to Kuja who's dying inside. He sits with Kuja and they talk for a bit, Rhek forgiving him and telling him his existence did mean something, after all it was Kuja who teleported them out after Necron went down and the place was blowing up. Rhek stays with Kuja until the bitter end when the tree completely collapses in on itself. Goodbye Rhek...?
The text reads "Years Later" at the bottom of the screen and we go through each character, wrapping up stories, showing where they've gone from the final battle. Alexandria has been rebuilt in large part and Cysra, the queen, is having everyone back to her castle for a reunion of sorts as Baku's band of pirates once more puts on a play for the royal palace. Cysra is still upset, because I guess Rhek never made it out of the Iifa tree afterall. But as the play starts the main hero is all garbed up. You know who it is.
As the play goes on, eventually Rhek unveils himself and declares his love for Cysra. She goes running down to embrace him in the final scene. Aww.
So this is Sakaguchi's favorite huh? I was skeptical because his prior favorite was five which I didn't like at all. But this one completely redeems him. This game was.. GREAT. For myself, it is a close second to FFVII. I know many people would faint to hear such blasphemy, but this was really really good. Just fucking enjoyable to play, a great experience, so much fun. I loved it. Well done Square, you keep pumping out great games, I'll keep playing them. Thanks.
End game stats, clocking in at about 44 and a half hours.
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