Major spoiler warning
Here’s the first post, should you want to start at the beginning
I’d been noticing Bahamut’s sprite hovering over a whirlpool for a while and now I got my blue mage back.
Siegfried and Elina were a touch under-leveled for this so I rotated them out with Vahn (level 46) and Vera (level 45) alongside Babs (42) and Ami (36).
Bad Breath inflicted silence on Bahamut but I don’t know how much silence actually effects them.
Golem + Fenrir is a must. Vahn alternated Dragon Strike and misting the party with Hyper Ethers and Ami casts Maelstrom when she’s not healing. Babariccia and Vahn can also pick up slack with healing when you need a few group heals in a turn (which you very well may in this fight).
Once Bahamut is dead, a text overlay tells us that the death of the King of Dragons has created a power vacuum which “the Eight Legendary Dragons” are intent on filling.
Bahamut yields twenty-five thousand exp and twelve-thousand gil. We are also left with the Bahamut magicite, giving Vera a new summon ability (75 MP for Bahamut to materialize and cast Megaflare, hitting the whole enemy party for tens of thousands of damage).
We also have over a hundred-thousand gil, so it’s off to Garamonde to buy a rare item.
The Esper city of Garamonde is directly north of the water body in the center of the map. To access it, you need to park the airship on a field separated by mountains to the east. Summon Shadow and ride across the reefs northwest until you see a village surrounded by a swamp.
Here, a villager called Topal will sell us the key to Temple Kasion for a hundred-thousand gil. Temple Kasion itself is a tower on a tiny island, within the overworld’s central water body.
After getting my ass handed to me by the monsters, I wandered off. To the southwest of Mount Matoya is a place on the overworld where a tiny house tile sits between two mountain ranges in front of a lake. This is Douzmir Lake, where we hear FFXIII music. The whole place is reminiscent of the Sunleth Waterscape from that game.
A fraught location from the Esper world, we are met first by a cabin filled with Espers who fill us in on the history and the dangers. Douzmir Lake is home to a storied Esper called The Lady of the Lake and the sword Excalibur. A human swordsman lately stopped by, heard about Excalibur and promptly set off into the surrounding forest.
I knew Siegfried’s arc was sabotaged by glitches, earlier.
Ashmog- one of the eight Legendary Dragons -is just behind the Esper Cabin. Since Ami has Maelstrom and Vera can summon Bahamut, this lasted for all of five seconds.
Off to the northeast, there is a tiny cabin with a Memoir Page (count rests at eleven) and a set of Gaia Gear.
Here, then, is Siegfried’s canonical re-entry into the party. Upon rejoining us, Siegfried’s level is bumped up to 35 which makes his Flurry ability (four sword-strikes on random enemies) a lot more fun.
Round two with Gilgamesh did not last long (he drops Soul Spiral) and soon we are rotating Siegfried to the head of the party so we can hop across the stones to the Lady of the Lake (is it bad that I’m still hoping the character-specific obstacle-transcendence abilities end up playing a bigger role?).
Siegfried claims that he seeks Excalibur to use its magical strength in defense of Kaipo. When the Lady doubts his sincerity, he says that his words come from the heart.
Lady of the Lake: “Do the words come from the heart of Siegfried, or of Rollo?”
Siegfried then removes his mask, revealing an Edgar-like face. His current path goes back to a time when Kaipo was nearly wiped out by sand worms. The town would not have survived if Rollo (as he was then known) was not in charge of a local military garrison. At the time, Rollo was married to a woman called Salina who did not survive and he has never ceased to hold himself responsible. This is where his obsession with martial perfection came from. As he honed his skills, he met a man named Davon.
Since the cut scene we saw way back in part 3 was a glitch…it is possible that we are not supposed to know anything of Siegfried’s queerness before this point. He says that he met Davon at this time but we are not yet supposed to know how the appearance of a new love complicated his recent commitments. He skirts this and says that he adopted the Siegfried moniker to avoid being dissuaded from his pilgrimage to find Excalibur.
The more time passed, though, the greater the guilt for staying away (from Davon but we’re not supposed to know that). He begs for Excalibur, to close this chapter of his life and to begin to rebuild what he left behind.
The Lady of the Lake acknowledges the truth of this but she still has one final test for us to pass. A test which may require a tent and a save point.
Before the bridge to the second Gilgamesh battle, there another bridge running perpendicular to the west. This leads to an islet where the Clarity Visor is tucked away in a chest: total immunity to confusion, +32 to defense and +60 to spirit. I had Siegfried equipped with the Gold Helmet before then, so switching it out meant losing +85 to HP but it’s worth it. I knew we’re prolly gonna have Excalibur soon but even so- replace his sword. With Vera wielding Hauteclaire, Siegfried is free to pick up the Einhander.
Make sure Vera summons Golem and Fenrir. Fenrir casting Haste on everyone goes a long way. There’s probably a way to finesse this victory better than I did but I basically just went with: Haste everyone so the entire party goes first, get Golem to cast Shell on everyone, group heal every turn and do a shitload of damage every turn.
Aaand holy crap Excalibur has +530 to vigor, +35 to spirit and +25% to Hit Rate. Switching out Einhander means losing a buff to magic but the Einhander was always more of a dual-mage-and-edge-fighter weapon anyway. Siegfried was never much of a mage.
Also- in the dialogue I saw when I first showed up in Kaipo -didn’t Siegfried say that he had Excalibur? It didn’t make a lot of sense at the time since we had just reclaimed Hauteclaire for Lindblum rather than acquiring anything. So that dialogue must have been meant to come later.
No cut scene takes off in Kaipo in the present, though. Davon still has the same dialogue he ever did. This was probably all patched a long time ago (like I’ve said a million times, just download the current version).
This has got to be a cultural thing…but gambling has simply never entered my mind as something that’s worth doing: a bad idea designed to be a bad idea.
But…something about the basic premise of waiting to see what random images sync together feels like an intriguing gaming mechanic (I’m one of those weirdos who liked the slot thingy in Crisis Core). There is something vaguely aesthetic about it, to. With a slot machine, it is all you do: press a button (or something) and watch the random images appear. Distinct patterns only matter insofar as rows of them represent different quantities of tokens. Each image is distinguished only by a numerical value. This quantitative value is determined through the spatial relationships of the images.
The images themselves are utterly beside the point. Color and shape exists in this only to be fragmented and quantified.
Huh.
(This is what it’s like being me)
Anyway.
I went to the Rotunda of Revelry, bought a bunch of tokens, used a few, then bought enough to get Lyric to join the party. Lyric has two Card slots under the Equip menu and what I think is a deck of cards she arrived with, each having different buffs and debuffs attached. Most of them have two buffs to one debuff except for the Stakes card which has one of each.
Lyric also has an ability in her Chance roster called Lagomorph that gives the whole party a low-number heal and treats some status effects, including blindness and poison. When I first played FFVI in English- when I was young -a meaningless combination in Setzer’s Slot ability did something called Mysidian Rabbit, where a white bunny in vaguely Asian clothing would hop around and give everyone a small heal. In French, this creature is instead called Lagomorph.
The attention to detail gets good, at times.
So.
What is Faluhd Castle? A big empty fortress between Organa and Silvera with treasure and monsters. Sounds like a place Laka might end up.
At the castle, it’s fun to kill the undead monsters by having Elina cast Curaga (learned by her at level 28) on all of them. Dunno why but I’ve always appreciated that mechanic in FF. Speaking of the undead: equip everyone with a Safety Bit for some protection against their Death spells. The Safety Bit doesn’t work every time (I wonder if a stat like luck or spirit plays a role?) but it works enough to equip them. Other monsters on other floors will be casting Death, to.
It was also a fun time to discover just how perfectly the Einhander blade suits Ami. Elina had two weapons that would scale up her vigor: the Tri-Rod or the Void Star. Swtiching out the Wizard Rod meant losing some points in either magic (Void Star) or spirit (Tri-Rod). Elina’s a white mage, so Void Star it is. The Void star is distinguished only by its vigor boost in the long run, though. Eventually, the Calcite Rod (can be stolen from Woodytches in the forest west of Kaipo) is what you’ll end up with if you want to keep going for the next boost to spirit.
The Kuza Beast on the second floor (looks like a stony-colored Behemoth) was the first one to deal thousands of damage and then only occasionally. The monsters on the third floor can both give and take thousands of damage, with some of them having max HP in the tens of thousands. The Mahotsukai (floating, fiery mages with a blade-topped halo behind them) should be hit with Maelstrom (or something else bad ass and water-aligned) before they have the chance to cause trouble. The third floor also has a lot of magical enemies so prioritize Shell.
Unfortunately the third floor also has some tough monsters that are weak to fire and Ami doesn’t know Flamethrower yet, so Ami rotates out with Godot. He can use the grinding more than her, anyway.
Beyond the inn on the third floor, the sword Daedalus can be found in a chest beside a derelict item shop nook (has an item shop sign). With +320 to vigor, it is the most powerful weapon for Darius so far. The catch is that it has -100 to speed. Off to the right, in a space with desks, bookshelves and stools, is the Erinyes’ Spear, which has +225 to magic and +250 to luck but falls well short of Gungnir in both vigor and spirit.
At last…the search for Laka has paid off. We just had to rescue her from a Mimic. Not even a very strong one, either.
I did a bit more exploring, afterward. Defeating a Red Giant in the forests outside of Dragon Point and returning the dropped Armament Cache to Balthier will open an item shop that will sell the Dragon armor set to us for tens of thousands of gil.
There is a Memoir Page on Mount Matoya (twelve, so far). Tokoloshe the demon waits in a cave. We easily kill him but not in time to save the Esper Garuda. The village of Silvera is released from its curse and we are left with the Garuda nethicite: passive 50% resistance to wind with leveling bonuses of +1 luck and +5 max HP.
Nero, in his isolated home in the north, will recognize Ami if you visit him with her at the head of the party. Before her fatal journey to the Wild Temple, Lysha entrusted Nero with a key to her property in Hillsdale, with instructions to give it to Ami should he ever see her again. At the Hillsdale property, we find the Magic Scythe ability item and a Glyphed Belt. Magic Scythe teaches Ami the Sickle Slash blue magic, which deals two blows of high non-elemental, defense-bypassing damage, with a low hit rate.
At the Surgate Waystation (post-Merger) a thug behind the desk to the right will sell you a Skeleton Key (key item) for fifty-thousand gil. Perhaps it might be of some use with the locked treasure chests in Faluhd Castle?
Faluhd Castle made me aware of just how naked I am without someone with decent elemental magic versatility. Ami can cover that base in her own way. Babariccia can if you’re willing to use a lot of non-elemental and wind-aligned magic and Godot is a black-and-white magic generalist. Vera can rotate between a variety of big guns like Bahamut and Odin in addition to her supportive summons. It would be nice to have our black magic guy back, though.
Wayne in Lenadia City says that there is a scholar in the Lindblum desert who possesses a tome containing the greatest black magic. The problem is that I don’t know if I remember encountering this dialogue in the pre-Merger world. It would be cool if this did refer to Oalston but it doesn’t feel likely.
Y’know…we found Laka at the end of a crazy combat gauntlet…perhaps the pattern might hold true…?
Temple Kasion is the hardest monster gauntlet I’ve encountered thus far, displacing the post-Merger Underworld (post-Merger Underworld hasn’t been the hardest in a while, tbh).
Laka has been able to take out the Flan-like Gunk monsters with Death from a single try most of the time (luck: 126). Power Shards can be stolen from Iron Giants. Black Dragons take two-thousand points of damage per turn while poisoned and are susceptible to blindness, petrification, silence and slow. Megalixirs can be stolen from them. Black Dragons also drop Adamantium Ore, for Basil’s side quest.
Near the front of the first room are tiles. Sometimes, when you touch them, the screen will flash and you’ll get attacked by a Cycloid.
In the second room are a number of bridges disappearing under the water. This is a maze that can be solved through process of elimination. Beyond the hidden water platforms is a forked path. To the left is a chest with a Hyper Ether; to the right is a chest with a Crystal Sword (not particularly useful just now tbh).
Up where the hidden water path forks, go to the left. You will come to another fork with a stairwell to the left and a chest with an X-Potion to the right.
Up the stairs, we emerge in an apparently outdoor area where the moon and stars are visible above either the ocean or a layer of the atmosphere. We’re on an island so ocean, maybe?
Before the next bridge is a chest with a Hero Ring. Across the bridge, General Leonardo lay collapsed. He says that- after being commanded by King Gorman to travel to Ivalice -his ship capsized en route.
Leonardo then woke up in Temple Kasion. He goes on to explain that the hallway behind him opens on the interior, where dwells a spirit manifestation of the planet itself called Minerva.
Minerva and Leonardo got along, at first. After a while, she began to lose her mind which Leonardo attributes to the recent radical disturbances to the elemental crystals. She has held him captive within temple Kasion ever since.
Down the hallway, we find more Cycloid tiles. To the far north of the puzzle is a chest with Dragon Armor. When you are equidistant between the treasure chest and the entrance but on a level with the right corridor, turn right. You might face two Cycloids if you insist on the Dragon Armor but- if you simply make the L bend -you might not see any battle at all.
The path turns south to a stash of fifteen-hundred gil. Skirt the path to the far east until you find the chest with the golden apple. Across a short bridge to the north is a save point.
To the northeast is a door between two torches. The following scene is accompanied by Another World of Beasts (VI).
Once again, we run into the mysterious nature of Espers and other groups they overlap with. In the Citadel’s library, Vera read that Minerva is an Esper distinct from a goddess (I would not have presumed that separation since so many other FFs blur those lines).
More specifically: she is “an extremely powerful lost Esper.” This usage of “lost” sounds new to me. This would also be the second time in which we’ve heard of people venerating old and powerful Espers. Ivalice did so in the past with Bahamut.
Minerva says that she is “intwined with the forces of this world, an extension of nature itself.” Could that be true even if Minerva is not a deity? These kinds of cosmic wave patterns are- in Final Fantasy -often a cumulative phenomenon, deriving from the most basic patterns of life.
That would be distinct from a divinity with a discrete personality and area of influence. Espers are part of the bigger group of summon monsters which (in FF) often take the form of mythic, ephemeral beings with a range of different expressions.
Whatever the case may be: Minerva is, in fact, too crazy to let Leonardo (or us) leave and we begin a boss fight with really pretty music that I don’t recognize.
Laka stole a Ribbon from Minerva almost immediately. Then my party got wiped out, over and over again.
This looks like a battle that requires a group heal and substantial damage-dealt every turn. Hopefully Laka’s been farming as much Megalixirs as possible from the Black Dragons. Minerva can also drain all of a party member’s HP in a single hit with an attack called Transference. I do not yet know if this is simply an “instant death by draining” spell or if the amount drained is scaled to a crazy-high stat value possessed by Minerva.
Luckily: Safety Bits protect against this. This is a single-target threat while Minerva also has a number of multi-target attacks, two of which are holy magic. If you have more than one Holy Ring, spread that shit out amongst your party. One of the multi-target holy spells- Suppressing Light -may cause paralysis so you’ll want something that wards that off. It also pays to equip your party with any shields or armor that resists or negates holy damage.
Minerva also has both the Wing Clip physical attack (single target) and Ultima (multi).
This is the biggest crapshoot yet. So far, I’ve been hoping my buffs and heals land in just the right way before it happens. In addition to Ultima, Minerva has another non-elemental multi-target attack called Meteor Shower which is more easily survived if everyone’s HP is in the late four-thousands through five-thousands.
In case this isn’t obvious, this is a fight in which you either want a lot of Phoenix Downs or a party member who can cast Raise or Revive. Jasmine had a nice balance of both magical and bad-ass physical attacks and she knew Revive. Elina knows Raise but…I don’t know if she has the HP for this one.
I backtracked outside of Temple Kasion (soaking up the grinding and the Megalixir farming as I went) and flew around the globe until I saw something that looked vaguely circular in Ivalice. Not only does the Gygas Arena actually exist but I found Jasmine there almost immediately. Sometimes finding people is easy, I guess.
Unfortunately she’s only leveled into her twenties which means catching her up will drag this out even more. Maybe I can’t take her into the Minerva fight but it wan’t a complete loss. Evidently the Gygas Arena was scaled for us to be doing this waayy earlier than now, since I waded through twenty consecutive victories, each one of which increases your rank within the Arena.
There is a room on the Arena grounds, filled with locked treasure chests which unlock according to your rank. At rank ten, the third chest to the right unlocks, giving us the Belhemel nethicite. 50% passive slow resistance and leveling bonuses of +1 vigor, +1 speed and +1 max MP. Twenty victories will unlock the chest containing the Unicorn magicite (attacks all enemies, non-elemental but lethal to undead, costs 28 MP).
So off I went back to Minerva. For a while.
This only happened because of relentless and shameless item spamming (I stole over twenty Megalixirs from Black Dragons) but I fucking did it. After stealing the Ribbon, Laka’s job became dosing the party with a Megalixir when needed (almost every turn, leaving me with two left by the end) while Ami spams Maelstrom, Vahn spams Dragon Strike (you may be tempted to try Zilant Pierce but don’t- it does holy damage which means Minerva will absorb it) and Vera rotating between Bahamut, Fenrir and Starlet, based on circumstance and cool down time. Minverva drops a suit of armor called Flidais Maille (defense +125, +20% to max HP and 40% resistance to earth and holy).
Here’s the sauce
Until next time, TBC
