Light spoiler warning
Here’s the first post, should you want to start at the beginning
Talbard and his soldiers were tracking a magical object for Lord Zeul on a remote island when they- like Jasmine -fell into a hole in the ground. Kinda starting to sound like a certain kind of monster behavior from some older FFs.
This happened five years ago and Talbard knows nothing of anything that’s happened on the surface since. He and his soldiers have found no possible exit and have become rather comfortable defending their new Underworld neighbors. With their concerned well wishes, we pass behind and above Valefor Fortress and use the upper rock formation as a bridge across a nearby gulf of lava.
There’s gonna be a lot of on foot, overland travel and monster encounters for awhile.
If you’ve been stealing and hoarding Mega Potions and Hyper Ethers, you will probably be dipping into that stash about now when you’re not relying Elina. I really like that you have access to every party member’s abilities outside of battle whether or not they’re in your active party. It’s not that the active party is separate; they’re just the outward facing line of defense.
At level 18, Siegfried learns Shatterstrike (Earth-element attack). While experimenting with Vahn’s Shockwave (acquired at level 20), I learned that you can stop-effect the Shapeshifters and it won’t stop them from shapeshifting. Life Shards can be stolen from Chimeras. Dragons drop Dragon Fangs. Still haven’t stolen a thing from a Shapeshifter, though.
Before the final leg of the journey, we encounter the Dwarven Castle; the final buffer between the Fey and the wider Underworld society of Dwarves, Ghouls and Demons.
Everydwarf there is super-welcoming and King Doran offers the following explanation of why they use lava as moats.
Could that be because the Fey came from somewhere else? Like the Ivalician humans did?
So…who knows how hardcore Babineau wants to go with weaving the analogues and references into subtext…but something about that reminds me of the VIIR trilogy. Like how the Gi (who look like traditional Final Fantasy Dark Elves) are dimensional outsiders and the Cetra having a certain amount of first-hand knowledge of dimensional travel? The Dark Elves were dimensional outsiders of some kind in FF Stranger of Paradise, to.
I also get this game had already been released once and heavily patched by the time even the first VIIR game or SoP was out, so prolly not (outside of retroactive editing). Then again I could see how certain themes from FFI could lead to broadly similar possibilities, what with Garland’s time loop and the appearances of other temporal outsiders like the Warmech.
Anyway-
King Doran informs us that Malacore and the Fey have been making absolutely pathetic progress: it seems the Fey are famously argumentative and frequently stop otherwise simple organized efforts over their rows. For once, the party might make it to a Crystal before Malacore.
King Doran then directs us to the last treacherous bottleneck before the realm of the Fey: the Crystal Weald. To the eyes of surface dwellers, the Crystal Weald resembles a forest covered in snow and frost.
It is, in fact, an ancient miasma vent. Like in Organa village.
Don’t worry if you don’t remember; neither does Vera and Laka snaps at her over it.
Miasma…appears to be a specific substance, rather than a miasma. Let’s just proper-noun it.
In the short run, Miasma is dangerous to inhale and human settlements steer clear of the vents. Like volcanic gas under the Earth, Miasma appears to originate from the Underworld. On the surface, there does not seem to be many historically-attested emission points, which suggests that humans usually fill in the vents, maybe?
This is the Underworld, though, so it has nowhere to go.
The Crystal Weald, as previously stated, had Miasma for a long time. Over the eons, it crystallized into tree-like formations. Dwarves, Demons and Ghouls who were in the area at that time were reduced to crystal formations. From what King Doran said, it sounded like a gradual process but if individual people were caught in it, then maybe a gradual process with a sudden, erupting consequence?
Whatever happened, our course is clear.
All in all…the Crystal Weald is a travel and combat gauntlet, like we’ve been going through for awhile, yet there are signs of additional relevance. The Crystal Weald has the music from the underwater laboratory from VIII: the place where you find Bahamut. In Blackmoon Prophecy, Bahamut is the patron deity of Ivalice.
There’s still the rest of the game left to prove me wrong on this but I think Babineau uses musical associations from prior games intentionally. Certain tracks from VI seem specifically associated with Ivalice. Both the shrill horn version of Under Martial Law and the soft clarinet version are used in a lot of scenes concerning Ivalician characters (we also heard Under Martial Law during some Baram-related events but those seem to be the exceptions that prove the rule). The appearance of the Phantom Forest music during the descent to the Underworld also felt like a thematic nod to VI.
What we mostly got going on here for monsters are status effects and some off-beat elemental affinities. Jasmine’s Aura Cannon is lethal against the red zombie-ish Draugr monsters. Holy damage, so yeah.
Jasmine turned out to be one of the more powerful and versatile of the new characters. The use of Tifa’s punching sound-effects for Jasmine’s fist attacks is charming (kinda like how Elina’s attacks have Aerith’s staff-strike sound effect).
I brute-forced much of my way through here with the party arrangement above. In the ensuing flood of exp yield, Laka hit level 26 and learned Death. At level 20, Siegfried learned Mirror Strike (damage proportionate to remaining HP) and Jasmine learned Dusk Requiem (Earth-element attack). Feathered Caps can be stolen from the Arachne monsters (a purple palette-swap of the Arachnias).
On our way out of the Crystal Weald, Jasmine catches up with Vera. Earlier in Vos, Vera gave Jasmine a quick, conversational version of what happened to her on the surface. Vera drew the line against beating false confessions out of innocent people, Deckar and Eva turned on her and she fled with Vahn and everyone else.
Jasmine’s opening is a little ominous, considering how she spoke of her brother: “Don’t be stupid and dodge my question! You’ve been branded a traitor, and my brother even tried to kill you. How are you, Vera?”
Jasmine made a black-and-white first impression at first. With the emotions at work, who knows what Ivalician military associations are going to bring out in her.
Vera just answers the question, though. Plainly and directly. She’s glad to have found the refuge that the party provided but she fears for her safety in Ivalice. Even if a military officer defies orders and defects for a righteous reason, you usually can’t take that reason to a debate in your homeland.
However, Jasmine tells her not to sweat it. It hurts to lose people and moral and ideological disagreements are rarely amenable to conversation. She also reminds Vera that she hasn’t fared badly outside of her country; she is with people who value and defend her. She even points out the way Vahn looks at her.
The unexpectedly technological Fey Spire looks very much like the Tower of Babil from IV…but I also can’t help thinking about Chrono Trigger? I could’ve swore I saw a dome from Chrono Trigger‘s far future, early in Blackmoon Prophecy. It was on a land mass separated by water from Branch Castle.
For a place that looks so much like either the Tower of Babil or the Prometheus Dome, the Fey Spire has more Fey-like monsters than technological ones (almost like the tower was there to begin with and the Fey found it afterward). Survival Vests can be stolen from Gremlins if you haven’t grabbed one yet. During the grind, Darius started recovering MP from Cheer and hit level 18 which unlocked Climhazzard. This is a somewhat heavy physical attack with no defense transcendence. More importantly- whether it gets softened by enemy defense or not -it will temporary debuff a foe’s Vigor (physical attack) for about two turns.
There are long distances between things in here but not very many stops to make. There are three doors you need to unlock to get to the final rooms which require passwords. In the same zones that contain the first two doors, there are monitors that display these tiny three-number passwords on the far, upper right / northeast. For the third door, head to the far upper left / northwest corner for the password instead. The doors are always on the opposite side of wherever you find the password screens.
The locations of the passwords and the doors or simple enough but the distance and encounter rate will make up for it. Just keep everyone’s HP topped off and keep going. After the save point, we fight a rather stupid mercenary for the third time.
Dio was nothing to be afraid of the first two fights and he’s nothing to be afraid of now. Just keep everyone healthy, keep Vahn Jumping, Ami using Goblin Punch and Darius with the Shadow Veil + Darkside combo.
Unfortunately, Dio slips out at the end, saying that ‘Keith’ only paid him enough for three fights. I’d love for him to be gone but I don’t think he will be.
It seems we did not beat Malacore to the punch but he’s not exactly seizing the moment either.
The Fey Spire appears to have been converted by the Fey into something like the tower of the fanatics in VI: a giant magical training ground for a radical and insular circle of magicians. Rather than the Magic Master, the topmost room is occupied by the Mystic Triad. This made me think of the three crystallized figures around the last save point / camp site in the Crystal Weald: they looked kinda like the Warring Triad from VI.
This is a more uniform trio in comparison. They each share a dark palette swap of the sprite of Scarmiglione (the Archfiend of Earth) from IV.
The Mystic Triad can be a little intimidating at first but just handle this like you did Dio: keep up the group heals and the defense / affinity transcendence.
Malacore, it seems, understands delayed gratification better than a lot of super villains. He promptly absorbs the Earth Crystal and comes at us at full power.
Malacore starts off buffing himself so have Laka cast Dispel first thing. Malacore’s Regen spell may or may not cease with other buffs which is annoying but not exactly a problem. Laka can also steal a Hero’s Shield from him, which is worth the effort.
The dude has a number of multi-target attacks, though, including casting Demi on the whole party and a Tsunami-ish move called Cleansweep. Along with frequently casting White Wind, Darius’ old Shadow Veil + Darkside number can be a major asset.
Somehow…after getting my ass handed to me three times in a row…I apparently did it. He may have absorbed three crystals but he also exploded right in front of us. The party even kicks back in Lindblum for a bit.
Periodically, we’ve gotten glimpses of late night conversations when the party stays at an inn during a plot juncture. We are doing this here because Regrent Gran feels indebted to us for taking out Baram. Having done that, Gran then trusted us enough to send us after the Earth Crystal. There are less intuitive places for a base of operations than Lindblum Castle.
Siegfried is hanging out with the blakc and white mages on one side of the castle. If Malacore is dead, then Oalston believes that it’s only a question of finding a new avatar.
He reminds Elina and Siegfried that the Water Crystal is the only one that Malacore has not absorbed. However, we saw at the beginning of the game that the Water Crystal still plays a role in his plans. We know, in fact, that Darius was telepathically controlled by Malacore largely to release him from the Water Crystal.
Hey- remember what else happened at the beginning?
Darius starts going all Guantanamo Bay and gets reprimanded over it and removed from Braak, the prisoner. Then Braak gets mind-controlled and breaks out.
Fellow-Dragoon Hans gets word that Braak escaped. Hans grabs Biggs and Wedge and they give chase.
Where was the Water Crystal at that time? Under Branch Castle. Just below the dungeons. Like something down there reached up and grabbed Darius. Darius releases Malacore and the two set out for the other three crystals.
Hans, Biggs and Wedge follow Braak to the hiding place of the Water Crystal.
With both mind-controlled Darius and Malacore otherwise occupied, Hans, Biggs and Wedge are intercepted by our mysterious friend Gylfi. Since then, Gylfi has sicc’d mind-controlled Hans on us a few times, for whatever that might tell us.
Meanwhile- The Archareons- the head of the Esper pantheon -saw the party as the three dimensional occasion for Malacore to tip the dominoes for the Blackmoon Prophecy. Have we proved them right or wrong?
Vera’s late night conversation with Vahn has the Awakening variation of Terra’s theme. She timidly thanks him for intervening when the other Ivalician generals turned on her. The two lovebirds reveal their feelings for each other. This is also reminding me of the beginning, when everything was going just a little too smoothly for comfort.
Here’s the sauce
Until then, TBC
AilixChaerea 