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Post by Mario the black knight on Aug 28, 2021 0:30:33 GMT -5
So after an uneventful regathering of the main party, the next morning, we were met by Ulara being empty.
We arrived at the teleporter to find all of the winglys flying together, waiting for us. They called it "seeing off great heroes", very different from what we've seen from all the Winglys in the game thus far.
Charlie congratulates Rose on the "good work" shes been doing. She credits Rose for saving the world at least 107 times, and all while being called "The Black Monster"
Charlie then muses about what Creator Soa was thinking, and why he has put us through such trials.
Rose responds that they will change "Fate"
From the teleporter, we arrive at the "Home of Gigantos", a place we visited WAY back in Disk 2, which I feel like was on a different continent, but whatever.
And you think Kongol would have useful to say, but I think we know better by now. Instead, Miranda is surprised by how nice the Winglys were, and that they should correct some of the books in the National Library in Deningrad. Albert then has this line "Yes, Correct Knowledge brings correct conduct." I dunno why, but I like that line.
And now, for a nostalgia trip through one of the more annoying areas in the game, The Valley of Corrupted Gravity. And all the enemies are the same level as the last time we were here.
I think this is the first time we've revisited an area like this. Typically it seems like each disk has it's own setting, so this is interesting.
Upon completely uneventful arrival to the Twin Castle, the soldiers of Tiberoa were all together, much similar to the way they were in the Ulara. They are ALSO here to see us off to Rouge. The king greets us, and after some boring smalltalk, lets us know a ship is ready to take us to Rouge, and that he also doesn't want to see the world destroyed. What a relief.
After that, it looks like Princess Lisa hugs dart, to which he kinda jumps back and says in the most tepid way possible "so long."
We then meet that flamboyant sailor again, Puler. I guess on our first encounter on the boat I didn't notice the leader of a group of seamen was called Puler. Thats kinda funny.
Funnier still, a line that actually popped me real good, was Puler waxing romantic about how confident everyone looks, even though everyone is going to an unknown land. Haschel is there, and starts saying "Actually, it's my home village" but the textbox is overlapped by Puler going on saying "A man of the sea isn't bothered by those little details!". I LOVE visual jokes like that, where they have the textboxes overlap to show someone talking over someone else.
After Puler gets done waxing poetic, Kayla, the first mate, comes up and lets us know it's gonna be a long, hard journey, a fact that I'm sure Puler won't have a problem with
She also begs us to save Shana, to which Albert gives her our word, and Haschel agrees.....Interesting. So it seems like there is some division in the party about how we handle the Shana issue. It seems Rose is still set on killing Shana, but at least Dart, Albert, and Haschel have other plans.
After an uneventful sail, we arrive in Rouge, a tiny fishing village plucked straight out of Chrono Cross
The mayor of the town recognized Haschel almost immediately, even though he's been gone for nearly 20 years. Haschel says he was looking for his runaway daughter, but gave up on it, which is interesting.
After some small talk, we get right to the point, and go up to the Mayor's house.
Haschel looks around a little, and concludes basically nothing has changed here in the last 20 years. After a little more small talk, Haschel asks about the location of the Ancient Cities we were told about by Charlie.
The Mayor of Rouge seems to not even know what Winglys are....which seems a little suspect. Or possible just a sign of how insanely remote this village is.
Haschel explains the situation with the classic fade in fade out, and after the Mayor is caught up, he seems to have about the same reaction we did when we found out the world was in danger, calling it "A pretty awful thing!!!"
yep.
Dart asks if there are any ruins around that couldn't have possibly been made by humans
A fisherman nearby says theres a "stick" rising out from the sea.
The Mayor tells us that it can't really be approached by sea due to the whirpools near it, but it can be seen on a nearby cliffside. Apparently it is a recent development, as Haschel didn't know about it.
Ironically, perhaps, while I was looking for Stardust, I found the woman we were looking for the Stardust for. Apparently the entire reason for her wanting the Stardust was because her daughter had a debilitating illness. We gave her more of the Stardust and she gave us a crappy Amulet. We left and came back, and after that second Stardust, her daughter can slowly walk again. Interesting little side story
We reach the cliff they were referring to, to see a massive tower jutting out of the water. Miranda asks if Rose remembers anything about it from the Dragon Campaign, since she was there after all.
Rose ponders for a moment, then reminds us that Charlie said the Signet Spheres were in Magic City Aglis, The Death City Mayfil, and Law City Zenebatos.
She says if here memory is correct, that this is roughly near where the Magical City Aglis was located. She postulates that Charlie told us to come here first because she believes this is the place Zieg will come first.
Meru then asks about the Law City, and why it is called that. Fair question, it is a weird name. Albert then adds that the Crystal Palace in Deningrad used to be called the "Birth City", a detail I don't remember learning, but OK.
Rose tells us that "The Birth City Crystal Palace" was a city where babies were selected to be born.
Select being a word Dart questions.
Rose tells us that the babies with weak magical power weren't allowed to be born. A revelation Meru isn't terribly happy to hear. So we got Eugenics too, we are hitting all the bases here.
The Death City, as that other NPC made it sound, is where the souls of the dead were sent to an Infernal World, basically hell pretty much.
Rose then gives us the choice to learn about different key locations described to us so far, which is interesting, Rose is finally opening up to us about what all she really knows and remembers.
In reference to the "Forbidden Land" she says it was the Capitol of the Wingly World.
In reference to the "Law City", it was the city where Wingly Laws were made, which leads me to believe it was the dead center of the Forbidden Land.
They claimed it was for justice, but in truth, it was where the laws that judged "other species" were made.
She also tells us it's where the "trials" and executions were carried out, a prospect the other party members find unsettling.
In the Magic City, unbelievably, they studied Magic.
After this, the party agree that they need to find a way to get to Aglis, as since it was noted before, it can't be reached by boat.
After leaving that area, we get this creepy cut to the "Mirror Room" in Aglis City, where a creepy Wingly is watching us as holograms on some projector.
Rose for some reason was aware of this random cutscene, letting us know we were being watched.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, theres a MASSIVE Earthquake
The panicking mayor blows by us, and all he tells us is the sea is splitting.
We go back up to the observation point to see the city rising from the sea, and a massive, Moses-esque tunnel of water leading there. Well thank goodness for that convenient turn of events.
But since this is supposed to be an exciting moment, and I am feeling kinda sleepy, it's probably a good time to hit the convenient save point and attack this again another day.
Next time, we part the sea and go attack Aglis.
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Post by Mario the black knight on Sept 7, 2021 2:48:22 GMT -5
So we took a boat out to Aglis On arrival, it was clear to everyone that this is probably a trap, as someone's magic is supporting the structure of the tower, and the door isn't locked in any way. Rose decides Dart should be the one to open the door, and settle things with Zieg. And she did it with all the "If we go now, theres no turning back" vibes in the entire world, so thats neat. Inside, the party is in awe of the technology and magic inside the tower. Rose explains that it didn't used to exist under water, and that in the golden age, The Wingly Cities existed in the sky, allowing them to more easily control the people below. This is what the giant arrow battery was for, shooting down their cities. Dart notes that Rose and Zieg both did this, and Rose confirms her, Zieg, and the other 5 Dragoons lead the charge. Suddenly, the place begins to rumble. Kongol lets us know "Sea Closed". So now we are trapped here. Shocking. The party agrees that whoever is leading us into this trap is not playing around. To really drive that point home, in the very next room, we meet this strange dog creature named Ruff, who ends all his sentences with the word "Ruff". Way to drive home the seriousness of our predicament, game. Ruff tells us that "it's rough, ruff" This fucking game. It relays a message to us. "Welcome to the Seven Heroes Fated to be here. And Rose, these thousands of years I have waited were neither as long as eternity nor as short as a mere twinkle of a star. People who confront their fate with courage...." It forgot the rest. Clearly, these guys aren't playing around. Everyone becomes about as frustrated with this idiotic construct as I am right now, with Miranda leading the pack, asking if Ruff is on Zieg's side, and demanding an answer, otherwise she "is gonna mess you up!" fucking GO Miranda. In response to Miranda's righteous rage, Ruff responds unaware of what "mess you up" means, and asks Miranda to show her what it is. This better pay off. Before she can break this moron creature's face however, Meru steps between them, and says "This baby didn't do anything!" BOOOOO! Miranda better beat them both up! Sadly, Miranda doesn't get to mess either of them up, as Meru discovers that this creature is made by magic. IN THIS MAGIC PLACE CREATED BY MAGIC CREATURES!? YOU DON'T SAY! Rose comments that this sort of technology didn't exist during the Dragon Campaign Meru calls Ruff "cute" to which Ruff responds "Ruff is cute? Then you are all not cute, ruff. But, Rose is exception, ruff." I feel like this is alluding to something, but I can't figure out what. Rose deftly responds "If I am an exception, why don't you take me to the Signet Sphere" sensing that this absurd scene has been going on for far too long. Ruff responds "It's your own challenge to go by yourself, ruff. All is for the sake of the Psychodelic Bomb and Moot, ruff." I'm sorry. Fucking WHAT!? On that, he leaves. Because of course he does. Anyway, this place has Battle Theme 3, which is a mediocre fighting theme, but I love the victory jingle, so thats cool So after some exploration, we find ourselves in a room with ruff and another one of these idiot creatures, Phewy They tell us they are preparing the Psychodelic Bomb and Moot. Rose tries to be smart again, clearly not understanding that this character is literally too stupid for that to work, and says "It's been a while since I came here, Don't you think you should be nice to me and tell me more?" Ruff is too busy and can't tell us anything, while Phewy tells us what he already told us, but also that "he" is coming and Phewy needs to make it in time, and that we should remember our courage. Dart asks who "he" is, before Rose is me for a moment and says "Let's go, they irritate me." This dungeon mostly consists of these kinda boring teleporter mazes these Wingly places always seem to be, where they just make a really quick render, and fill the area with teleports so movement isn't difficult, it just takes longer for tediousness' sake. We encounter another magic creature. It carries another message. Rose is already over it. But the creature addresses her specifically, It says "You are in the mirror, Rose. It's Rose who got friends and is in the mirror." Rose, showing how over it she is, says "Stop speaking in riddles. If you have a message, just say it." The creature responds "Don't be mean, Savan said." It continues: "Zenebatos, which governs the rightful law, has lost it's reason, and Mayfil, which governs over noble death, has bee toyed with by devils from the infernal world. This city is no exception. My magic power is deteriorating and cannot prevent the invasion by monsters anymore. The only saving grace is my .... This city's objective is about to be completed. You are the key. I have been waiting for you for thousands of years. Come, before he comes." Finally something intelligible from these things. Also, if that last part is referring to Zieg, I'm sure Rose has tried that before without success. Dart says "Savan. As if he knows everything." feels like more rough translation. Also, I don't feel like we know this character, but Dart somehow does. Rose says "we will find out" only adding to the confusion. It feels like Rose is really important to the story now, she almost has like co-main character status with Dart, and if anything, she is driving the dialog while Dart has little useful to say, and can barely get a word in edgewise. And here I was thinkin we was gonna kill dat bitch. We still might. In the next room, we encounter yet another magic creature. Meru appears, and comments that this one looks different from the others we;ve seen This one is round. So it rolls around, and comfort's Savan's heart, Savan being a city, as it turns out. But also a person? This creature uses the term extremely vaguely. Apparently it is the city of Savan, but this is also where the Wingly Savan lives, and looks through a "mirror", something referred to previously. Just then, a light in the middle of the room glows with holograms of the party. This is apparently the mirror that reflects the present, which has been watching us forever. It has watched Rose for thousands of years. Rose wonders why. The creature tells us that Savan is the same as Rose, the same as all of us now. I wonder if he means maybe a Dragoon? It tells us that Savan is "over there" The cool thing is once the scene is over, the mirror still reflects the players movements. Good touch. We find the room with Savan, and he addresses us "The time has come. The forseen evil is approaching." It is at this moment that I realize Savan might have been the people who produces the Power Rangers in America, and this is all a big reference, with the Dragoons being the Power Rangers....... ....Looked it up, that was Saban, nevermind. Anyway, he introduces himself as "The Wingly fated to wait." which is kind of a cool way to put it. He tells us the Signet Sphere is safe, and protected by "Last Kraken" which feels like another rough translation, as they neglected to call it "The Last Kraken" ...my suspicions are all but confirmed when Dart asks "You know everything!?" All he tells us is there is no time to wait. Rose once again cutting to the heart of the issue asks "What are you going to do....no, what are you going to make us do?" He tells us he survived the Dragon Campaign, and continued studying magic, in order to construct a Wingly World, the magic allowing him to become ageless and immortal, something I though all Winglys were anyway, but hey, now we know. However, in his estimation, the world outside no longer desired a world for Winglies. Stuck in an immortal body with no purpose, 4000 years of solitude deprived him of everything, including the significance of life and the meaning of death. But 7000 years prior, he was "saved" by Rose. He claims to have found meaning of life in the Black Monster, through the mirror. He restarted his research, which resulted in the Psychedelic Bomb and Moot. He claims "we" will stop Zieg, through the offensive spell, called the Psychodelic Bomb, (which honestly sounds like a shitty firework or something that happened in a porta potty at woodstock or something), and with Moot, we will completely seal the moon that never sets. Rose responds: "That is the answer to the riddle. No wonder it takes several thousand years." What the hell happened to the translators in this section of the game, practically every line since entering this area has been a mess. Anyway, he tells us that Moot will be completed soon, but, in order to activate the Psychedelic Bomb, he need the party's "Courage" Apparently, Savan's courage alone isn't enough. Not sure how that works, but for some reason, this feels like an even bigger trap than before, like this guy is gonna try to get us to detonate some weapon that destroys shit and starts his Wingly World. Anyway, Meru and Haschel try to encourage Savan about his courage, because I guess they perceive his self deprivation as an attempt to get compliments like he was a teenage girl on the internet or something. He tells us we will all need to endure some challenge for this, in order to take our courage and load it into the bomb. We cross this bridge, and each of us has to stand on a platform of our corrisponding color, because we are power rangers I guess. And creepy music starts. All of the characters except Dart, who Savan tells we should wait with him. It seems each character has their own challenge, perhaps we will learn more about each character here, which is good. The first challenge seems to be for Kongol. I'm sure they are gonna try to ask him to read a book or say something useful. Rose appears behind him, and ask him "why don't we fight for starters?" IS ROSE GONNA KILL KONGOL! RID US OF OUR AMARANT!? OH, AND SHE TALKIN SOME SHIT! "Are you scared because you lost so many times, or is the cheap pride of an giganto stopping you!?" Kongol acknowledges both his and Rose's babyface turns, realizing she isn't Rose Rose then tries to kill him. "Then Die." YES! YESSS! It was an illusion. BOOOOOOO!! Then Emperor Doel appears behind him. I guess they are reminding us of Disk 1 After ranting about his plans to Unify Endiness, it gives me a choice, whether to swing the axe, or take Doel's Sword. I will be doing the latter. Kongol tells us that he got new feeling. and new friends. Savan and his little Magic assistant then go into this dialog, summing up Kongol's "struggle" which indeed makes me think this is to expose the characters further, and I like this as a vehicle for that Next is Miranda. It gives me a choice before starting these, and a save point, making me think these decisions might actually matter. She strolls in with bravado. The magic assistant tells her she is hasty, has a short temper, and is hopelessly annoying. I think this was the test meant for Meru? There might be a mixup. The minion then has a question for "annoying Miranda." "Why are you here?" Yep, this one is supposed to be for Meru. The choices are: For my Friends, For the World, or For Queen Theresa. Dang. I think I'll take option B, if I am staying Kayfabe to this character The minion says "I asked the wrong question. All were right." But then since the minion lost, apparently it keeps the space in existance, and without that minion, Miranda dies too? Miranda then appears in this black space The minion claims that they are both dead. Seems suspect. Miranda then claims she is alive because she has hands and feet....not the most convincing argument... Buckle, the name of the minion, I was avoiding mostly because these names are stupid, tells us to die is to vanish, and now Miranda vanishes into the dark. Buckle asks if Miranda is scared, now that her body is gone The choice presented here is "I am ready for death anytime!" and "I cannot die now!" Not sure which one of those is the "good" choice? if that means anything? I'll take B again Miranda says she hasn't done enough, and "I cannot die as long as terror still exists!" channeling her best George Bush. Both characters reappear. We cut to Savan. His assistant tells us Buckle is mean. Savan tells us that "The person who knows the time of their own death has real courage." He then says "That means I too have....." suggesting he knows when he is gonna die. Not much came from that one. But then again Miranda is a last minute replacement, so there you go. Next is Albert. It begins with Minister Noish telling Albert that there is an emergency Albert asks where he came from, and Noish tells him that Savan called him there to tell him Serdio is in danger. Plausible story. Noish tells us that the "mysterious eastern tribe" is deploying an army around the border, taking advantage of Albert's absence. He asks Albert to return to the castle at once. The choice I have been given is either "I understand" or "I...cannot do that." Again, not sure how this is a test of bravery, but sure lets go with it. I feel like option B feels better, since he has a greater purpose Albert tells Noish that he is a dragoon before he is King, and to deal with the situation by doing everything possible to avoid a fight. Savan's assistant appears, and tells Albert not to worry, because there is no such thing as an eastern tribe. And the test is over? OK. Savan tells us that Albert had to weigh the world's crisis against that of his people, and that making cruel choices can be the responsibility of a king. And that the real leader has to be able to weigh the effects of a death. That is the courage of a king. OK, interesting, I like that. I see now why they have a save point here, each of these takes forever to do, so I might come back to this next time.
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Post by Mario the black knight on Sept 12, 2021 4:11:15 GMT -5
Onward with Character Exposition! Next is Meru. I expect we will get Miranda's test here. She is initially bored because no one is in the room with her. Then Bardel appears, looking like an old version of Kazuya from Tekken. I believe this is the chump Lloyd smoked earlier He claims he is back from the infernal world to get revenge for his sister. He shoots some magic at Meru, when another Wingly appears, named Guaraha He tells Meru that she cannot die here, because Meru promised him that she would settle the score for his sister after the journey ended. Bardel sidesteps Guaraha, and shoots a bolt at Meru, who blocks it. He asks her how she can still live after killing his sister, who admired her. I am realizing now that Older Bardel might have been female. Huh. My choices here are "I...." or "I still cannot die yet!" Taking B, because it seems like that is always the right answer. She tells us she can't do anything if she dies, astute observation there, not even make amends. The figures disappear, and Lulu the magic creature appears, asking Meru if it was tough. End of scene. That wasn't much. After, Lulu laments to Savan "Poor Meru" Savan muses "Death does not make amends. "Making Amends" only exists in life. We surely saw the courage of Meru who knew and chose to live." ....I mean....OK? This feels very Japanese, very much "she did not commit seppuku to cleanse her shame!" Moving on, next is Haschel. He begins in his cell which is empty stating "The Completion of magic requires both the material and the heart of the person who uses it." Which....sounds cool, if a little weird for him to say. He compares it to raising disciples. Then the music cuts out entirely, and a completely silent version of the flashback to when his daughter kills her opponent in training which caused her to run away plays in Sepia tones. OK, this is getting interesting now. Lulu appears to Haschel in the present, and tells Haschel he saw Claire leave Rouge though the mirror. Lulu asks: "If you could erase all your memories, and could go back to that moment, could you stop Claire?" My choices are "I could stop her." and "I couldn't stop her" I'm really not sure what the right choice is on this. My gut says to go with B though Lulu replies: "That's Right" So I guess I'm right? The scene ends after this. Cutting to Savan, he says "Accepting the past...It shows courage too." Now I am doubting that answer... Next is Rose. Now THIS should be interesting. It begins with Savan himself appearing, and telling her "I would often think about it. The thing we are doing, namely Charle creating the Signet Sphere to seal The Moon That Never Sets, and Rose continuously killing the Moon Child." He continues "I prepared for the coming evil day with a new Signet, Moot, and the Psychodelic Bomb. And waited until the moment. The road to destruction laid by the creator, Soa was supposed to be absolute. But Evolution was stopped by us, Winglies. I would often think about it. Whether our deeds were the right thing. And will continue forever. I am afraid. Whether I will be myself until the day my body perishes and becomes dust. Will our intention be engulfed by the intention of the creator, Soa eventually? Is everything meaningless?" Rose up to this point was doing that thing where she just stares off into the distance, looking away and being aloof. She finally turns around to face Savan, and tells him "You go too far." She replies: "We are neither immortal, nor gods. We are mere people. People should just live in the present. Because it means living for the "next" present. I have been that way. And I won't change." She then cuts to the heart of things as she always seems to, "When is my challenge?" The scene ends after this. No choice to be made. Very interesting. There isn't even a reflection scene like with the others, it just jumps right back to Dart. I believe his challenge is next. After starting the challenge, Dart enters the chamber, and Shana appears, unsurprisingly. Lulu floats down from above, and says "It's the possibility of the future." We then go into that scene from Final Fantasy VII just before Sephiroth kills Aeris, where Dart draws his sword, and says he can't control his body, fightng the urge to I can only assume kill Shana. Interestingly, they had this audio effect on the sound of Dart's armor rattling as he struggled against the sword, that slowly got deeper and deeper, and as I waited it went so low that it became completely inaudible and creepy. Anyway, Lulu tells us "You have to take up swords against Shana." Dart continues to struggle. Lulu goes on: "Shana is the Moon Child that gives birth to the God of Destruction, as well as being Dart's significant other." ...odd phrasing again. But the question that follows is very interesting. "If you have to take up swords against Shana, what are you gonna do?" My answers are "I will save Shana no matter what!" and "What should I do!?" Huh. Well, I feel like A is the more heroic thing to say, very RPG protagonist. But at the same time, is killing her to save the world the right thing? Oh buddy, this is good. From the perspective of courage, both answers feel right in different ways. One faces the destruction of the world in the name of saving everyone, including Shana, shattering the chains of fate for good, while the other forces you to make a huge personal sacrifice in order to save the world in the immediate term, but continue the cycle of Soa forever. They both feel like the right and wrong answer.....Fuck. The others were pretty cut and dry, this is.....Fuck. What is crazier is how they set it up so all the other answers had B as the right answer in pretty simple terms, to make B feel like it should be the right choice in some way. But it feels wrong in this circumstance. I'm taking the first, that is what feels right. Shana disappears, and Lulu responds "That's courage." I kinda wanna do the other option to see what she says, but I feel like either answer could elicit that response. We cut to Savan and Lulu like before. Savan says "The courage to pursue your love will change even fate." Even if that choice ends up being entirely pointless and doesn't actually effect the outcome of the game in any way, it felt huge, and that is really good storytelling. It was the question that haunted everything we did on Disk 4 thus far, and finally just pulling it into the open in this way was cool. We cut to Dart crossing the bridge back to the other side of the room, where Miranda tells us that Savan has gone on to see the results. after some smalltalk from the others, Albet notes that we can wait for Sieg at the Signet Sphere. And he wonders if we all know what this means. Dart replies "If we can stop my dad in this city, the world will be saved. Thats it." You know...somehow I feel like it won't be that simple. After another tedious teleporter maze, we find Savan with some glowing light, and this great synth sound Savan tells us that the courage is adding up. He tells us "Give me your hands to save the world!" Good line. Dart reaches out, and the magic gathers in his hand. Savan tells us that it is exceeding its limits. Dart wonders if this means it had failed. Savan tells us that it is not a bad thing, and that our courage was too strong.....Sounds suspect. Savan tells us that his ultimate magic is now completed! Two of the magic creatures come in, and one of them is Ruff, telling us that the preparations for Moot are complete. Furthermore, they lean even harder on this joke and for about the 56th time, Ruff tells us "It was rough, ruff." I swear, it's like Kenny Omega with the stupid North Carolina joke. It wasn't even funny the first time, leaning into it won't make it any better. Anyway, Savan says that it seems we made it in time. Dart asks if this means we can stop his father's plan. Ruff replies "as long as Zieg doesn't destroy Moot. I suspect he is destroying Moot right now. The other creature lets us know that it is being guarded by the strongest of all the magic creatures, Last Kraken. Given how stupid all the other magic creatures are, that shit has probably been broken for years then. Savan, having blind faith in the idiot creatures he created, tells us we should activate Moot at once, it will put a new seal on the Moon That Never Sets. At this point, we find out we have acquired "Psychedelic Bomb X" so perhaps this means I answered the questions REAL good? Stuff with X in the title, especially in the year 2000, was EXTREME. So it must be good! ....just to find out "Cannot Carry Any More Items" .... Are you fucking joking? THIS ISN'T A KEY ITEM!!?! Can I break the game super hard right now? OK, so it's an attack item, that can be used repeatedly. I CAN theoretically throw it away.....7000 years of work, and just be like "nah." This definitely should not be a thing I should be able to do. This limited inventory is a bit much. This absolutely feels like it should be a key item. Wow. I'll just dump a useless potion or something. But goddamn, it is possible to go through ALL of that, just to toss that item away. It would be like getting the Chrono Trigger, then immediately throwing it away. Anyway, after yet another tedious teleporter maze, we make it to this area that has big FFX vibes, it looks like somewhere between Zanarkand and Midgar. Yeah, tell me this game wasn't built to be an FF "killer" Theres a save point here, so I am expecting some sort of boss fight. Savan says "Let me show you" as the camera pans to this massive machine in the middle of the city. "This is the Signet Sphere that has continued to seal the Moon That Never Sets, the flesh of the God of Destruction, the evil fruit that is settled in the sky...." Suddenly, a massive monster appears next to the Signet Sphere. "And this is Last Kraken. A Magic Creature that was born to guard the Signet Sphere. But we have you. It may not be needed." Meanwhile, I quietly ponder "I WONDER WHAT THAT SAVE POINT IN THE PREVIOUS ROOM WAS FOR, I WONDER WHAT THE BOSS IS GONNA BE!" Lulu adds "And Moot will start working." Dart looks over the rail, seeing a second giant glowing structure, and states "That is Moot." and Savan confirms. "When Moot is activated and the new Signet covers the Moon That Never Sets, the ambitions of that man will be terminated." Why do I have this sneaking suspicion that this might not work? Annnnnnnnnd suddenly, there is a rumbling, and Last Kraken freaks out. Zieg speaks from offscreen: "That was a poor introduction of me." Here we go. Rose and Dart ask where Zieg is, to which he replies "in front of you" Savan, having the absolute nerve to act surprised, says "Don't tell me, it's been manipulated!? It cannot be!" Rose, apparently attempting to dehumanize Zieg, says "Yes it is. It is controlling the heart of Last Kraken!" Rose then yells to Zieg "Are you saying that 10,000 years of rest brought you magic power!?" He responds "Yes. Isn't it estonishing evolution? Eventually, I will go beyond everything." I gotta be honest, I thing Zieg is a shit antagonist. It just feels like they waved their hands and gave him whatever powers they wanted him to have with no explanation, and the twist in general falls flat for me. Anyway. Dart asks "Father, Tell me! Why do you need to annihilate the world!?" His response: "Because it is the intention of the Creator Soa. And now, it is my intention as well." Come on. Really? SO weak. He then asks, in the edgiest way possible "Do you not only point a sword against your own father, but also, point a sword against Soa, who created you?" Considering this whole religion is only one of three in the game, and was in the game for like 37 seconds before it was the new main antagonist's primary motivation, this all just falls so flat. I have no investment in this Soa lore, it was introduced so late. Zieg then questions Savan on his intention to stop the birth of a god against the wishes of Soa. Zieg, the greatest antagonist ever, then tells us "You are all silly." Oh shit. Got em. Zieg then tells us the Moon Mirror Lloyd struggled to get was entirely pointless, and orders the Last Kraken to destroy the Signet Sphere, Moot, and the entire city. Good way to bury the lesser antagonist and pretty much the entire events of Disk 2 and 3, but OK. Dart proclaims that we must stop him, and that we will not let Zieg have his way. This is basically the fight with Diamond Weapon. And in the actual boss fight....the model for this kraken is absolutely absurd....... i.ytimg.com/vi/QXk175AcjJk/maxresdefault.jpgIt's WAY smaller....and those eyes are just comical. And compared to like the last 3 bosses I've fought, he was a total pushover. And yet..... I guess the extremely short period of time it had to attack Moot caused it to start overloading, and for whatever hand wavey reason, the Signet Sphere is resonating with the runaway reaction of Moot, according to Savan. Dart, being the voice of reason, asks why, since we prevented the attack Seeming to be calling an audible on this shit, Savan says "I've got it. The Field of power generated by the dragoons trigger the runaway reaction." I feel like someone said that verbatim in the writer's room and they just typed it in at the last minute. Savan teleports us out, and Dart bangs on the door, as Moot overloads....rather loudly...He tells us he will see this through to the end, and that we should hurry to the next city, since the Aglis Signet Sphere is being destroyed. Savan tells us "Even if my body vanishes, my heart will remain. It will give you wins to fly to the sky, to the Moon That Never Sets, where Zieg is headed." Man, this guy is just full of Deus Ex Machina, isn't he. Also, this noise....oh god... Rose then has something to ask Savan as he sits in a nuclear reactor of sorts. Savan, dramatically, replies: "Rose, I am greatful. Rose, you...were...my....." And then the whole thing explodes. What a fucking simp. Anyway, Rose tells us "We have no time for being sad." and like....we've known this character for MAYBE thirty ingame minutes. So like, I'm not, it's fine. Dart however walks back to the center of the room, head hung like a sad puppy, before I regain control. Also...how we were not blown up...I do not understand... Anyway, onto some teleporter mazes probably. I got curious, so I looked up Psychedelic Bomb X to see what the difference is. Apparently you only get the X version if you answer all the questions perfectly....so uh.....nice? I can use it once per battle it seems, so thats pretty nice too. I'll save it for the next big fight. Anyway, after going in reverse through most of the portal mazes so far, we are rewarded with some more poorly translated dialog Miranda finds Buckle and says "Buckle. You are!?" I don't wanna hear ANYBODY who likes Legend of Dragoon talk shit on "This guy are sick." for as long as I live. Anyway, ever the dick, Buckle responds "Miranda, You are still annoying, uck" He then asks if other people are safe. I hope Miranda kicks him off the cliff. She tells him not to speak...which is probably the nicest way to tell a dying creature to shut up humanly possible. Buckle reveals, unsurprisingly, that all the magical creatures can't live without Savan. Miranda still wants to do something for this magical flying asshole, because I guess she is a nice person? Buckle responds with "be quiet, uck. Good night, uck." He then drops dead. Miranda tells him to stop playing dead, which I had at first forgot that he literally did that in her challenge, which is a really good callback. This game man, one minute it gives you really well thought out dialog, the next it slaps you in the face with a garbage translation. Buckle Tells us we might meet again someday, which leads me to believe Miranda is gonna die before the end, with all the allusions to death surrounding her character in this area, it feels like foreshadowing, and much more subtle than the Black Monster stuff. Which makes me believe it could just be me overthinking this game. Miranda rises, turns around, and walks into Dart as tepidly as possible. After the next circle of teleporter maze hell, we find the Mirror room, with two more of the idiot creatures dying. Decal tells us he can't roll anymore, which is actually a little sad. Spino then shows us in the mirror, Zieg. Zieg is shown smashing the Moon Mirror. Rose is surprised by this. Spino tells us that because the Aglis Signet Sphere is destroyed, he no longer needs it. Wow. What a dick. We went though almost an entire disk of game to end up losing that to Lloyd. The mirror powers down, and they tell us that Zieg is already in the Law City of Zenebatos. The creatures wired the teleporter to take us straight there. Then Decal says "Please keep rolling for Decal." which is like the first time I have felt something other than some version of contempt for these creatures... Rose tells us they are dead. And Dart tells them that we won't waste their death. A nice little touch that they've done is the creatures bodies are left behind when they die. You can't examine them, and they stay there. Oh shit. We're gonna have to watch Ruff die, and they are gonna try to make me care. Thats gonna be annoying. And after the next leg of teleporter tedium (A future Chris Jericho stipulation if I ever heard one), here we are We see Ruff drop in front of us. Dart and Rose run over. Ruff tells us he's been here forever. Bets on if he milks that dumbass joke one more time? Lets see. Ruff tells us he only knows the views and sounds in here. He tells us he wanted to go outside at least once. You and me both Ruff, it's been a long quarantine. Rose tells him not to worry, because now he can go out. Ruff replies "Okay, ruff" Well, good, that was easy. Annnnnd from NOOOOOOOOORTH CAROLINA! IT"S ROUGH, RUFF! If it were me, I would have had Dart stab him before he could finish that line. Do it like Sniper Wolf's death, but funny instead of actually sad. After that line, Rose stands up, and we are able to walk over to the other creature. This time, Meru comes out, and says "these babies are dead too." It is interesting how she refers to them as babies. Meru says these babies completed their duty, so now we must too. After the final leg of the teleporter tango, we got back to the start of the area, and found the super teleporter thing Decal powered up for us. Albert comments on how amazing Wingly magic is. And Haschel gets all philosophical, being astonished by it's power, but not being able to accept the idea that live was generated by magic. Miranda follows up, finding the idea of being born just to do one thing depressing. Dart reminds us that The Virage Embryo was born for destruction only. And that it's existence might have the same sorrow. Rose has the brilliant idea of making it feel better. do tell, Rose... ...By making sure it will never be born. Oh, good, that makes sense.... She reaffirms that we need to go protect the next Signet Sphere in Zenebatos. We arrive in Zenebatos, and it is mostly stone ruins, rather than the shiny metal pseudo future stuff the Winglys normally do. Haschel refers to it as a "Austere place" and then needlessly takes a shot at Albert, saying he would love it. Albert unironically says he would find this interesting, if it wasn't such a mess. Out of nowhere, this robot lookin thing flies up, screaming "WARNING" and telling us Zenebatos is under Martial Law. To which Rose responds "Good for you, Albert." ....m'kay? She suspects the city is still alive. The bot then tells us that the city was invaded by humans, and to take shelter in Kadessa promptly, clearly showing this thing has been here a long time. Dart wonders if they are made from magic, which Meru seems to think so. She thinks however that they are not like the constructs in Albis, and lack a heart. Something Rose responds to, saying "it is just like Zieg now" OH, shots fired. Just then a giant monster flies our way. For a moment I was thinking "I am very not ready for a boss battle." before it started talking, telling us his name is Coolon, which, in my tired state, I thought it said Coolio. Which....is slightly amusing. He tells us he will be our wings. Rose relates this to Savan's last words, though her version of it is very different from what he actually said. "Wings that can fly the skies will be given." Coolio tells us that even though Savan couldn't complete his objectives, he still fufilled his role at the expensive of his life, and that now everything is on us. Dart reaffirms that they will stop his father, and fulfill Savan's will...we knew this guy for like 2 hours, and one of them was spent in teleporter mazes. As it turns out, Coolio basically functions like the airship in FFX, now we can travel to a selection of cities in the world. Not all of them though, interestingly. I'm just gonna stop off in Ulara for now, because it is much later than I was hoping because there was quite a long gap between save points... Anyway, next time, off to the Law City to go talk to robots or whatever.
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Post by Mario the black knight on Sept 19, 2021 0:07:51 GMT -5
So after a short resupply in Ulara, we are back in the Law City Progressing to literally the next screen reveals there was a save point right there, which would have been nice to know last time I played, but the past is the past now. We meet another one of these robots telling us it is prohinited to go to the places we actually want to go, and instead gives us the choices of going to the Law Factory, the Law Launcher, or the Legislation Center. I'ma try to go to the Legislation center, see if I can change the laws I don't like, so I can go to the places I wanna go. But upon entering that area, I bumped into a robot running around, and instead of triggering a fight like I expected, it just grabbed us, and teleported us straight to jail.......so thats cool... Dart responds to this unfortunate sequence of events with the wit he often does "Darn. What timing." Everyone agrees that we need to escape, but Meru flies around the room and determines theres no device for escaping. Dart suddenly realizes a party member is missing. But I count Dart, Albert, Rose, Haschel, Meru, and Miranda.......who is.....Oh... Suddenly, Kongol crashes through the wall, making LITERALLY his first useful contribution to the plot of this game since Disk 1. "Sorry Kongol is late." he says. God I hate Kongol. Meru wonders why Kongol was left outside, to which Kongol responds "Kongol don't know." That of course is because Kongol is way too stupid to know the meaning of the phrase "Deus Ex Machina." Rose, calling an audible to preserve kayfabe, explains that Kongol was too heavy to teleport... ...too heavy....to teleport.....If that was the case, why is this LITERALLY THE FIRST TIME THIS HAS COME UP!?! We've used teleporters a million times before, and he never got left behind previously. Satisfied with that shitty explaination of the situation, Dart McMahon says "Now we can get out!" Once we got back to the main area, which was literally a single convenient elevator ride away, we found some robots who sell stuff. And actually they "DG Armor" which I assume means "Dragoon Armor" which is actually pretty nice. They didn't have it for everybody though, they literally only had it for the characters I actually use, Dart, Rose, and Albert, so thats cool. And Meru...but who cares. So the dungeon is basically a crappy Stealth Mission, where you have to sneak by the bots who teleport you to the jail...so thats fun.. I got to the Law Factory, and the thing I joked about is real. I actually have to go to the legislation center first to get a law license to change to law....Huh. Who knew. Me I guess. So the way this area works is you have to literally wait in line to get an audience with the robots who issue the licenses. Each time you get the dialog wrong, they kick you to the back of the line and you have to wait for a few more little bots to come through to get your turn. Tedious, but I find it funny, so it kinda works. I had to actually remember the number of the law I wanted to revise, but I could only remember the number for the one they told me about having to be ignored if you are disorderly, and they actually gave me a license to attempt to change that bill...not what I was expecting, but I'll give it a try. Taking the license to the factory, I was given something I now have to take to the Law Launcher to actually finish making the law. Now....what I wonder is if this is going to be a massive WWII bazooka....or you know, something more fantastical... I've been using the bots to teleport me back to the jail when I finish in an area, and what I love is, to maintain the kayfabe, Kongol has to walk though the door every time, since he's not being teleported. Anything to make that losers life worse, because fuck Kongol. I actually love that the law I typed in was the one that got changed. But that also means I have to do literally everything I just did again, but for the correct law. So I had to go find the correct law number, and now I need to go through the whole process all over again. All changing the number I picked did was make it so I didn't have to wait in line this time. The minute I enacted the correct law at the law launcher, I noticed something whiz by....A daddy perhaps? We shall find out next time.
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Post by Mario the black knight on Sept 26, 2021 2:56:39 GMT -5
So we are back at the gate for the Signet Sphere
Initially on arrival, the bot told us no revision had been received.
After a moment, the little stone arrived, similar to the one in the main room where we changed that other law, and the change was enacted
Miranda commented that they treat laws almost like commodities.
Rose responds that the law to the Winglys was a mere tool to judge other creatures.
Dart says that tool repressed them for too long, before finally boarding the disk.
Upon reaching the Court area, the bot on the other side goes all creepy and starts spinning after Dart mentions that the Signet Sphere is supposed to be here
The bot says the names of everyone in the party, totalling 7
It refers to all of us as "The Accused" before going back to it's seemingly regular programming....weird...
Hilariously, JUST out of frame, with almost comedic timing as I walked over, there was a save point.
I WONDER IF WE ARE ABOUT TO FACE ANOTHER BOSS!?!?!!?!
We enter the next room, to find the Court, where Judgement was passed for Non-Winglies in the name of fake justice, according to Rose.
Suddenly from above, a bunch of bots float down, all screaming GUILTY, then one big bot who looks a lot like Arc from FFIX comes down in the middle, claiming "I AM THE JUSTICE! MY WORD IS THE ONLY TRUTH!!" which....OK, thats actually a pretty cool quote for this sort of boss.
The Bot considers the party The Accused, in the name of breaking the law of none other than The Creator Soa......It seems someone might have got to this one...
It then proclaims "THUS THE DEATH PENALTY IS SENTENCED"
Yeaaah, but if you kill us, when will we get to do the bossfight? OH.....right...
It calls down 3 winged executioners, Vector, Selebus, and Kubila. And the fight begins.
One looks like death, one looks like an angel...and one of them looks like Brutus The Barber Beefcake...With Scissors....and critically, no wings.....
Pretty straight forward fight, the angel countered, the death guy had a counter move when any of his allies died, and Beefcake just sorta attacked people with his scissors, and eventually just started eating people....this fight was weird...
Anyway
The big bot tells his master to hurry to the god, since the "rebels against Soa's will" overcome him, before he disappears.
The Signet Sphere is ahead, surely nothing will go wrong here!
We arrive to find the Signet Sphere already destroyed, the Moon Dagger laying there as proof.
Dart wonders how it is possible, before Zieg floats down from the sky, telling us "The sky is one of my roads too."
Theres this thumping sound, like a heartbeat, and Zieg asks "Can you hear the movements (theres an awkward extra space before "The Movements" for some reason...sloppy), of the God of Destruction? As if a hymn to the new world"
Rose replies that it sounds more like an outcry of the world to her.
Zieg tells us "With the 'outcry', Shana will be reborn to the god who no longer knows you!"
Without hesitation, Dart tries to attack Zieg with his sword in anger, but Zieg backhands him like a fly.
He claims that Shana desires this too.
Dart dismisses the possibility, but Zieg says "You'll see when you meet her. For Shana, you are a mere object to be destroyed."
Before any more can be said, Zieg flies off.
Rose immediately tells us "He is not Zieg."
Albert asks who he is then, and Dart tells us we will find out in Mayfil, the third city.
A lot of this section of the game feels like going through the motions, like we are chasing more maguffins, but we should already be past that phase. It doesn't feel like much thought went into this section compared to the first arc. I'm hoping the game surprises me, but this section felt tedious.
Conveniently, we can apparently reset the teleporter device we used to get here to take us straight to Mayfil.....Inconveniently, theres a law preventing that....which means we have to go through the tedious process of changing ANOTHER law.......
Ugh.
About half an hour of tedious backtracking later, we finally use the teleporter to go to Mayfil. What a slog.
We cut straight to Zieg, who is in amazement that Mayfil still leads souls to hell.
He muses about whether it is connected to the Devildom. Something we've not heard about yet.
He says it doesn't matter however, as "The plan determined by Soa will drink everything to the last drop" a really interesting way to phrase it.
We arrive in Mayfil ourselves into this room using a very Dutch angle, with creepy music, really setting the stage for the area. The characters look off screen, and Dart asks Rose what something is.
Apparently, in ancient times, The Winglies used this massive machine to suck souls from all over the world into a nearby tower, with the intent of deciding on those souls destination
Kind of a chilling thought, The Winglies had such complete control of the world that they even decided who went to hell...Dark.
Rose asks why out loud to herself.
Albert says "You want to say it should have been destroyed during the dragon campaign, don't you?"
Haschel however notes that both Agilis and Zenebatos were fully functioning, so it shouldn't be that strange.
However, Rose tells us that The Dragoons destroyed this place completely, so that they could never play with souls.
She then wonders if maybe the souls that couldn't completely die gathered here.
Dart tells us he doesn't like this, in that classic, Ramza-esque, single sentence for everything way, basically letting Rose be the protagonist for now.
Rose reassures us that whatever happens, as long as the moon is in the sky, we are fine.
So kind of a weird direct subversion of Final Fantasy VII in a way, the thing floating in the sky in this game being there is actually a good thing, unlike in VII where it sitting there looming in the sky was more of a threat.
Dart tells us we need to get to the final Signet Sphere before his dad.
In the next room, we find this weird machine, and in the middle, according to Rose, is the soul of Feyrbrand, The Green Tusked Dragon, with Albert's Dragoon Spirit responding to it.
Dart wonders based on Rose's theory, if it is the same for dragons in terms of their souls also gathering here.
She thinks the fact that it was defeated by humans, who were supposed to be weaker than them, it became a burden on their souls.
She theorizes if we kill it again, we can probably break the attachment....because getting beat once by humans makes them feel strongly enough to stay in the world...but dunking on him twice, once after he was already dead, fixes that somehow? Weird logic.
Anyway, Dart says we really don't have time to deal with this, and Rose agrees, saying we need to catch up to Zieg or the world will end.
Oh joy, another teleporter maze.......
In one room, I found another dragon spirit...and it just started the fight immediately....because apparently NOW we have time....
Also, I didn't know apparently Dragoon forms have special victory poses, just found that out.
I just wrecked the water dragon's shit with Dart's fire elemental dragon skills, pretty sweet.
Oh....I'm realizing now...theres a high probaility we meet Lavitz here.......just calling that now....
So I found another Dragon Spirit....and it's sitting on a treasure chest....it's kinda tempting....
Oh...it's the divine dragon spirit.....Oh...oh no....
Annnnd we're dead......yep, that was a trap...
Luckily I saved before doing that, I ain't no dummy.
So in the next area, after big scary dragon, they do a puzzle sorta like something from Dark Souls, where theres an invisible path, and you have to watch the colors of the particles to find the path....at least it isn't more teleporters
In the next room, we find a weird lifestream esque beam, walking into it, a single souls flows out, one that Dart feels is familiar, it has a certain warmth that brings some memories...
He tells it that "We will stop Dad." which makes me think it was his mother. And it heals us in return...Isn't that nice.
In the second room, we get this creepy camera angle, and these creepy ghost sounds, and Rose telling us not to come close....
The Souls in the room begin taunting "The Black Monster", telling her they are happy she is finally dead, like them.
Rose responds to them all by saying "Hate me if you want, but I can't die now. Please wait until everything is over."
Remorse. Possibly the first time we have seen it from her about all shes done. Interesting.
After falling about a dozen times and having to restart, finally we reach...the next room. Here, Dart wonders where the Signet Sphere is, but Rose seems concerned, and she tells us there is something nearby.
Theres a floating spirit like before, it screams, before reappearing, a figure in white. Dart says "You, you are....no way."
Albert says "Yes, it is possible in this city!!!"
Called it.
He takes on his normal colors, and says "It's been a while, Your Majesty Albert."
This should be a happy moment...but the music is creepy...
Lavitz tells us he has the honor of seeing King Albert's face again. He also comments on how much stronger Dart has become.
Dart replies that since he left us, we have encountered many enemies, to which Lavitz repeats "enemies" but in quotes.
He says thats why there are so many souls that know him. Dark...
He explains "Souls that are attracted here remain with a variety of thoughts. That's why they are attracted by the gate of hell. Negative thoughts like attachments are the favorites of the devils from hell"
Interesting that theres this concept of hell, not sure if the Tiberoan or Serdio religions covered this or not. I know the Tiberoans were obsessed with the stars, and the one in Serdio was a bit more stereotypical judeo-christian, but I don't think either of them covered the afterlife lore of this universe...
Anyway, Rose asks "And those devils are driving Mayfil, aren't they?"
Lavitz comments that there are many souls here who know her.... Countless....
yeesh...
Darts tries to get to the point of this, asking why Lavitz has appeared here in front of them.
Albert wonders if he is here to help....based on the music, I'ma guess no...
Before he can answer, he starts glowing and screaming. Dart approaches, but Lavitz tells him not to come any closer.
He then transforms to become all creepy and deformed with this weird starfish on his back that looks like Starro from Batman Beyond, with his skin turning all purple, and him telling us to get out of here.
He fled into the teleporter behind him abruptly before anything else could happen.
Rose postulates that possibly one of the "devils is playing with his soul.
Dart and Albert are absolutely apalled by this idea...like way moreso than the idea of anything happening to Shana...Even in death, the Dart/Lavitz/Albert love triangle goes on.
We chase Lavitz into the portal, and ask him why he ran away. He responds as if he doesn't know who we are....here we go...
They remind him of who they are, and he remembers momentarily, before screaming and struggling some more.
Rose, the person who actually notices stuff that everyone else is oblivious to, actually notices Starro on Lavtiz back and puts everything together
She proclaims that "It smells of Devildom!"
And he attacks us!
To the designers credit, he actually uses his Additions in the fight.
Also, there actual dialog in this fight, where you can choose to talk to him to make him open his weakpoint. Pretty cool, reminds me of the Jecht fight a little bit.
After a few big attacks on the demon on his back, it releases Lavitz and becomes it's own boss. but not before more mid-battle dialog. He informs us his name is Zackwell, an resident of the Darkness.
He tells us Lavitz as so worried about the party that he couldn't bear dying. He thought it was a little presuming, but he granted Lavitz momentary life.
Dart, of course incensed that this devil got to be more intimate with Lavitz than he ever was, declares Zackwell will not get away with this!!
After a pretty pitched but straight forward battle, we get another one of those battle scene half FMVs, where Lavitz gets possessed again, and attacks Dart, who initially has to block his onslaught. But instead of countering, Dart drops his sword, and cries out to Lavitz with his arms out. This lets Lavitz take control one last time, and as the demon tries to take back control, Lavitz stabs HIMSELF in the chest, all the way through, to kill the demon himself.
He then returns to normal...besides the gaping hole in his chest... and gives thanks to everyone, and appologizes for attacking them. Darts puts his hand on his shoulder, shaking his head with the first smile we've seen on his face since Lavitz died. Lavitz tells us he regrets having died when he did, to which Dart cries out "You are not dead! You live on in all of us!" then Dart, Lavitz, and Albert all join hands together, to consummate the early 2000s Japanese version of a polygamous relationship, before Lavitz starts to fade away.
With the last of his power, he says he will show us the way to the final Signet Sphere, before he disappears in a white light
Despite the hokey and ridiculous homoeroticism of it all, I actually kinda liked this scene.
Upon approaching the path of light Lavitz created for us, Rose gives us that extremely obvious "There is no turning back" warning, so I decided to go back to the save point for now. Not sure if this is the for real for real end of the game, or just a major moment before another boss, allowing us to go get more provisions if we need them, but I am gonna be cautious just in case.
I am hoping we are near-ish the end, I kinda wanna complete this before October if I can, so this can just be the summer game of 2021, and I usually get into the Dark Souls mood in October.
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Post by Mario the black knight on Sept 28, 2021 4:01:42 GMT -5
So we have gone past the point of no return. After taking Lavitz's Bridge of Light, we arrive in a room, with the Signet Sphere intact. Rose tells us this is the last thing protecting the world from destruction, and if it were to be destroyed, there would be no other way but to deal with god itself. A SHAME IF SOMETHING WERE TO HAPPEN TO IT! NO WAY THAT WILL HAPPEN THOUGH, RIGHT!?! BAH HA HA! Dart, having read ahead in the script, asks "When Shana crosses to the Moon That Never Sets, The God of Destruction will be born...?" He proclaims that he won't let it. And right on queue, Ziegs theme starts playing. He tells us he will finish the world here, to which Rose tells her to reveal himself. Zieg, while hiding, tells us that he doesn't hide, and appears from nowhere in front of us, still flying. The party draws weapons, ready to fight, and Zieg tells us that we don't need weapons, as a fight is not appropriate before the celebration of a birth. For the first time in history, Dart does something at least somewhat logical, and realizes he can infact become a dragoon and fly, and uses this to try and get the jump on Zieg, who once again swats Dart away like a fly, making him drop out of form. Dart declares again and again "I won't let you!" ...To which Zieg responds by activating the last item and using it to instantly destroy the last signet sphere. So uh....welp. He tells us "The Arrow has already been released!!", making the first time in history releasing an arrow in this game had a significant effect. He leaves, and suddenly everything starts rumbling, with Rose telling us "The Moon is Falling!" And here I am without the Ocarina of Time... Albert hopelessly proclaims that "The World is Ending! Does this mean that humans cannot revoke the will of the creator!?" Man, what a great king. Dart steps up, saying "Not yet. Don't give up!!" The "Dart makes an important decision theme" plays and Dart tells us "It's just the signet of the moon is broken!" Rose agrees, saying "We can still struggle, and that the moon has not obtained Shana yet!!" ...which will probably happen right when we step outside probably.... We reach a dead end (in the city of the dead....heh...) and Coolio arrives here to help us! We then get an FMV of the final Signet Sphere breaking the barrier around the tree of life, before the moon crashes down and lands on top of the tree. Out from the moon comes hundreds of Virages...Oh dear.. Coolio flies up, with Dart, MERU, and FUCKING KONGOL on it's back, like that was a party literally anyone would ever use, rather than having, I dunno, Rose and Albert, the 2 people who got on Coolio's back before the FMV started, but sure, whatever. Anyway, they fly through the cloud of Virages, and one of which takes some shots at the party before finally hitting Coolio in the wing, and causing him to crash into the side of the tree. After the FMV, Dart and Rose are once again on Coolio's back, because apparently that FMV lied, and Coolio tells us he can't fly anymore....which like...probably means this is the end of the game? Rose tells us that it's all going to Zieg's plan, ad the terribly disasterous plan laid by Soa has finally started. And that those Virages are just a vanguard for the Virage Embryo. ...which is a little weird, that the Virage Embryo is more powerful than actual Virages? I dunno... Rose muses if the Divine Tree also desires this as the final outcome. Dart asks if we can still fight to save the world, because apparently he needs permission from the real protagonist. Rose wonders how he can still ask that after what he's seen. She tells us The Moon That Never Sets Awaits. Upon trying to talk to Coolio, they make it seem like he is mad dead....so yeah... I feel like maybe I should reload my save and do all the stuff I wanted to do before...But I dunno I guess if I die to a boss or something, I'll go back and do all the other stuff Anyway, after coming though some vein of the tree, we find ourselves close to the top, and find one of the eggs of Soa that never hatched somehow.....meaning the numbers of the species are totally wrong and the entire mythology of this universe is a lie, and now it's after us. Guess we gotta kill it so no one can know that the religion is wrong. Basically, it was this weird Caterpie that evolved into a Metapod, that then evolved into this weird winged humanoid butterfly thing.....and we saw what the last set of Winged Humanoids did to the world, so best to murder this thing in the crib. We arrive at a giant shot of the moon tangled in the tree. Dart tells us that the Moon that Never Sets is spreading poison all over the world. Rose tells us in order to stop the poison, we have to reach the core of the moon I know that of course, because thats where Majora is. Also, if this thing is spewing poison....why aren't we dying? Albert asks If Shana and The Core aren't "wedded" the God of Destruction won't be born, right? Albert doesn't get how babies are born... He verbalizes the dilemma of how we want to, you know...bring Shana home. Smart boy realizes if we destroy the core, without meeting Shana, it should save the world. Miranda then makes the point that Zieg is here for sure, and is likely here with Shana Meru is optimistic that we will save both Shana and the world Dart retakes his place as the protagonist of this game, saying something only a late 90s RPG protagonist could say, "Fate is not in the hands of the creator. It is in our hands! We won't let Soa decide the fate of the world!" He says that goes for Shana's fate as well We then jump into another one of these veins, which likely will take us to the moon When we arrive, Rose tells us that it's been a long time...very long...suggesting she has been here before? It looks weird as fuck inside, lots of weird veins all over, lit only by the sunlight let in by the little holes made by the Virages We get to the center room...and it basically looks like the room where you fight Sephiroth at the end of FFVII...like almost exactly...like the egg in the middle looks like where Sephiroth sits, and little beams of light come up the cavern like they did right before you fight Sephiroth....man this game... The party seems to think The God of Destruction was born already, with Rose saying "The Birth of the god of destruction is our death!!" Dart, once again showing the quality of this translation right to the very end: "Let's Go! Must stop my father!" After another bright flash, we wake up in a strange forest, with everyone confused. Miranda thinks we've possibly been sent to the ground? Rose says no however, since we can still hear the heartbeat of the Virage Embryo Dart tells us, no matter what it looks like, we must keep going The next room has this really pleasent forest music from the first disk, with the creepy heartbeat juxtaposed against it, which is interesting. Also, it's a really picturesque forest, and all the encounters are against Light type enemies. Then in the very next room, the music changes again, and now we're in a snowfield.... Miranda comes out, and realizes this particular forest they are in looks familiar.....Is this a swerve? Is Miranda ACTUALLY ACTUALLY The moon child!? She says it looks exactly like a forest she knows from Mille Seseau. ...I realize now, I never got a chance to actually go back to Neet while I was in Mille Seseau....huh... Anyway, Miranda tells us to wait here, because she needs to check something...alone...Oh jeez.... The perspective follows her to a rose blooming in the middle of a snowy grove There, she says "as I expected...This is the forest of my home. Why is this in the moon?" She kneels over the rose, before there is a flashback. It flashes to a child Miranda, who is asking her mother where she is going in the exact same place Miranda's mother, we can assume her real one, tells Miranda to go home. She is with a man who is dressed....kinda like a green bean? It's kinda weird. Anyway, the unnamed man says "Huh? You have a kid?" Miranda tells her mom that her father is calling for her. And the man asks what she is gonna do. Shit, this is about to get dark... Miranda's mom says "Because I married that man my life has been completely ruined. He hardly works, and drinks all the time with the money I earned! I don't even have enough food and am starving everyday! I cannot stand it anymore!" She continues: "A beautiful life must be waiting for me if I leave this forest! Yes, I can say farewell to this miserable life!" She then just up and leaves with green bean man, not ever acknowledging Miranda....yeesh... We come to the present, and the rose starts glowing. Then a fight starts.....Oh no.... We are just Miranda...against this massive monster. Also, no dragoon powers, not that we had any worth a damn to begin with....sooooo cool.....this is going to go poorly.... And this is Miranda...a palette swap of Shana....she has no Additions. She has nothing except shooting one lame arrow. I think it is "Spam literally all of my items and hope for the best" time.... Mid fight, the face of the rose opens, to I guess reveal Miranda's mom's face, and Miranda starts yelling at it, asking "Why? Why did you abandon dad and me!?" The plant responds "Ah, Miranda. I had no choice..." Miranda, being Miranda, replies "Shut up! Dad fell ill and I became an orphan. You can never imagine how I lived since then!" I mean...as royalty...you can't be too mad... The plant replies "...ahhh....It hurts..." After a few more guards, the plant opens up again...this might be a timed thing in retrospect... "I understand that what I've done is unforgivable as a mother. But, I want you to understand." Miranda replies "What do you want me to understand!!" Also, her model is really good, just design wise, much more interesting than Shana's. "I worked because I didn't want you, a newborn baby, to starve. But he didn't even try to work." Fuck. Why is this random storyline so...like...real and shit....? Miranda replies "My father may not have been a respected man. But at least he was with me all the time, unlike you!" Once again, it says "Ahh...it hurts!" After a few more attacks. "I can imagine how angry you are at me. But I never forgot about you, even for a moment." Miranda, indignant: "Don't lie to me!" The plant replies: "It's not a lie. I visted him so many times to take you with me. But every time, he just kicked me out." Fuck. Is this game just like....ripping this story from my real life? This is weird and I don't like it..... Miranda...shocked.."What...? My mother was thinking about me." "You have the same name as the goddess of Mille. She is pure and loved by everybody. I named you that because it was my wish for you....ahh...it hurts." After a few final attacks, it gives me a choice. "I am sorry to make you feel lonely. Miranda, forgive me." I am not sure what to choose........ In the end, I chose to forgive. It felt right. She disappeared, and the battle ends. And now I have 6k experience for a character I never use in battle. And like.....for all the misogynistic stuff in this script, the female characters are by long and far the most compelling...fuck. Miranda soliloquies after this "I entered the palace in order to preach love, and to build a world where everybody can live happily, but my heart was filled with sorrow and hatred. And without kniwing, I was absorbed in fighting in order to ease my loneliness. I didn't even try to understand my mother's pain and agony, just accumulate hatred, and hurt many people. I don't deserve to be a Sacred Sister." Fuck. This might be the closest this game has come to having some like...actual character development. I knew I liked Miranda for a reason. Suddenly, Dart, Rose, and Meru arrive, and the music comes back, as if this random moment of character development sideswiping the main narrative never happened. Meru asks if Miranda is OK, asking why her eyes are so watery. Miranda apologizes, and asks to be alone now, forgetting that the world is like...ending right now. After wiping her eyes, she then reverses course, making me think that maybe that line was a mistranslation of meaning....because this fucking game, and says "Lets go! Thats the only thing we can do now!" Anyway, the party reform screen happens, because I think it does that by default whenever your party changes like this, and I noticed that Albert's present EXP is actually a Palindrome number: 69496. How about that? I have slightly complex feelings about this scene. Putting my personal feelings aside, and the fact that I just really like the fact that they finally did some real, serious character development, it feels like this makes Shana even more useless as a character, and makes me wonder why we didn't see this on like...Disk 3. This feels like the sort of thing that should have happened there, not literally past the Point of No Return in the story, where we should be singularly focused on the resolution of the plot. This feels like a bit of a speed bump in the plot. This would have endeared me to Miranda way more even sooner, and made her story way more compelling, if we had built to this moment as a sideplot as we were still pursuing Lloyd all through Mille Sasseau. But I am glad it happened at all. After passing through a cave nearby, we find ourselves back in the creepy atmosphere of the Moon, giving the sensation of total whiplash. And then another car rams us, when we pass through another portal into like, a random hotel? Dart asks whats going on, and even Rose is confused. She draws her sword for a moment, then puts it away, saying she still feels pain, which makes me think she cut herself? She claims this is "Reality". She could have just pinched herself.... Albert comments that "I've never visited the moon before, but I cannot help but feel I know this place." Noticing people's faces and clothes looking familiar. He claims it's a building in Serdio. Which like...it very well could be, it's been like 3 disks since I've been there... Haschel adds that he has traveled all over the world, and that they have typical Serdian faces. I think he is saying they are white and not south asian like him, without actually saying it. He points out a particular girl, cliaming she looks Serdian, before taking it back and saying she is...not. Are they doing what I think they are doing? Are they doing what I fucking thing they are doing? He says it cannot be, before she walks through a wall. After sleeping at the inn, and refreshing items, we follow her through the wall, into this trippy forest with some new music. According to Rose, apparently it belongs to the Minitos, the 99th species. I am getting this sneaking suspicion that they just done whipped out the duct tape and it's time to patch some plotholes. After speaking to the first one, it tells us "The Psyche is creating this world. This time, it;s who's heart, who's intention. is it you or you or maybe me?" So basically they are fairies? Right. The second one tells us "You don't see people who you shouldn't see. You see people you have to see." Maybe this is that poison they were telling us about. After following the maze a little, we find the girl near a portal. Dart tries to talk to her, seemingly forgetting we saw her like 30 seconds ago, not realizing it was the girl from before. Haschel tells Dart that she doesn't know about him yet, and tells him he'll handle it. Here we go. He reveals for the slow ones in the audience like Dart that it's Claire and she is inviting him. He tells us to wait as he jumps through the portal. Dart then asks "as with Miranda, what's going on in the moon?" It cuts away to Haschel and Claire in an asian-esque room, with Haschel asking Claire if it's really her. She replies "Don't come here! I hate you dad!" She asks him "Always, always strict discipline....what can I use such a thing for!? The power to destroy!? The power to hurt people!? I don't need such power!" Haschel confirms "I strictly disciplined you since you were little. I only had you. I had to hand my art, this ancestral art, down to the next generation." And just like that, this game erases all the progress it just made with Miranda. "It's not fair! I just want to sing songs, chitchat with my friends, pick flowers, and fall in love!" You know, the things all girls do, right? Haschel replies: "Our art was never meant to hurt people. It is a martial art to give life to people. Please understand." Claire tells us "I don't understand!" Never tell someone to please understand....it doesn't work that way. ANNND FIGHT TIME! Haschel begins with dialog: "Do you remember the first time we matched wills? You read my movement in a blink, and went on the ovvensive with the swiftness. It was an innate art." She responds... "I don't think so. I am just a girl, like the ones you can find anywhere." fucking game..... Haschel actually rejects this ridiculousness, saying "No! You can surpass me. Nobody has been charmed by the War God as much as you. Your hidden power..." She replies "Ah... It's hot inside my body. Dad, help me. Somebody is taking me." oh....well I didn't expect this to go in THAT direction.... Haschel asks whats wrong. She yells yeeeeeeeeeeeeeek, before becoming like the anime girl version of the girl from The Ring, and now its time to fight. With the lowest level member of my party...cool I guess... Oh....I REALLY hope this is a timed battle...She does WAY more damage than I do, and nearly more damage than my guard heals.........This might actually be trouble... Brother, I think this girl already surpassed you as a martial artist.... So like...it's not timed....I do have to win this fight....this might be a problem... After a LOT of Double Punches, eventually, she starts another dialog, telling us that she hates us for doing this to her body. Haschel replies: "No, it's impossible. The transmigration of the War God.... Is she demonized!!" She yells again, and he goes on, "Incredible. Nobody has ever reached that level except the founder!" ...Hol up...what? You are HAPPY about this? You know what Haschel, I hate you too! Then she busts out this crazy ass move, warps all over, and does like a crazy amount of damage....we might be dead if the fight continues... But in the dialog, Haschel says "UGH....What....? The black art of Nagaruguna, Four-Gods-Destruction!! How did Claire learn...?" Before taking me back to the battle, where I had 1 HP...I might not be allowed to lose? I used a healing item just in case... Oh....she can do that regularly now? Oh...we are so boned.... I just threw everything at her, including the Psychbomb, and she is still whooping my ass. Finally, Haschel realizes how boned we are, and tells us "UGH....... There is nothing I can do." Demon Baby tells us "I am the War God! I preside over the art of war, and beckon death. It was your desire to awaken me. I am the answer to your long quest." Haschel replies: "No! You are my Claire! You are not the War God! Leave from the body of my Claire!" after another attack that THANKFULLY missed, Haschel talks again, "I can hear... It's the pained voice of Claire.... Hang in there, I'm coming to save you!!!" Uh...pops, I would not bet on it..... After getting my ass mercilessly reemed for what felt like forever, finally it gives me dialog, and a choice. "I feel your art down to my very core." the choices are "Mind's eye, Awaken!" or "Claire, please forgive me." I think the latter will be more effective. I hope... He says "How can I exorcise this? being obsessed by martial arts has made my precious daughter endure this suffering. Forgive me." AND THE FIGHT CONTINUES!?! WHAT!? I am confused now... Luckily it gives me the choice again. I guess maybe the first choice is right? "I don't care about myself. I have to save my daughter, claire! I'll focus all my body and soul into this, and kill the devil that possesses my Claire!!" ...that feels...like the wrong answer...? And yet... She goes for the super move again, and this time he counters it and punches her in the face....which causes the demon to de-possess her? She says "Thank you dad." ...for punching her in the face....I am getting mixed messages here... She then disappears like Miranda's mom did..... I don't think that was the right lesson here..... Coming out of the battle, he asks a non-present Claire for forgiveness. Dart, Rose, and Miranda come through the portal, and ask if it is over....because god knows with how long that took, the world must be over by now. Miranda asks: "Haschel, you also saw, the past?" since she also experienced this. Haschel replies "Yes, I did. But...the past wasn't as bitter as I imagined." Dart looks around, then scratches his head, because he is an idiot. Then Rose says "It seems everything, both the future and past, are filled in this moon" which.....I think this is a bad translation, saying both of these things fill the moon....but whatever. Dart then asks "Both Miranda and Haschel were made to see the past by the moon, right?" Rose replies: "they 'see' as I told you, we are in reality, it is not an illusion." Again, not sure totally what this means, but sure... She goes on "Maybe they can do it because they are the 108th species and gods." Again...what the fuck? If I had to guess, she is referring to the Embryo, and not Miranda and Haschel? Hopefully? Haschel, for once, summing up the situation. "Let's move on, we wasted lots of time." This is taking a lot longer than I expected it would. I think I'm gonna save and come back to this later.
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Post by Mario the black knight on Oct 4, 2021 3:33:31 GMT -5
Sorta hoping I beat this tonight So after making it back to the "inn" we meet a drunkard named Dran. It turns out he is extremely wealthy, and therefore, Albert knows him, because you know, nobles do be like that. Albert deduces that if he is who he says he is, then the place we are in is Bale from 20 years ago. Dart is shocked, but instead of elaborating, Albert walks back into Dart and we get absolutely no clarification on this revelation... So thats cool.. We step outside the inn to find a child who claims he will be a respected knight, just like his father...it's baby Lavitz... Everyone else is excited Emperor Doel has taken over, Which I guess this means this is before the Civil War We go down some stairs, and fall into a weird crack in reality, and return to the creepy atmosphere of the Moon again The next room seems to be floating high in the sky, and everyone panics, before realizing theres an invisible floor. Dart, dumb as ever, asks if they are really in the sky, to which Meru replies they must be, because theres a cloud next to them, but the cloud is purple and creepy, so prolly not....Also, I have a feeling Meru's solo bossfight is next. Rose gets everyone back on track, telling us not to look at the view forever, we are moving on. A huge shadow flies over us in the next room, and Rose, breaking her usual collected manor, says "Oh no! Michael! No! I couldn't have been mistaken! I was with him for more than 10,000 years!" I guess maybe Rose gets the next solo duel. No big deal Dart asks if it is Rose's dragon, to which Rose replies that it was the "Vassal Dragon", which is her dragon Interesting. It flies back, shooting giant lasers at us, which causes the party to take cover. The lasers blow holes in the fake sky ground, which the party jumps into. It splits the party We end up with Miranda, Haschel, Albert, Meru, and Kongol, in what looks a lot like Giganto Home....ugh god... Meru confirms that Dart and Rose aren't around Haschel tells us that since they are Dart and Rose, they should be fine. Which I mean, true....but you guys won't be.... Miranda, hopefully sarcastically, says "Of course. It's impossible for them to die from just an attack of a dragon." though sadly, I doubt this is meant to be sarcastic... Albert takes charge, pondering the fact that Rose called the dragon "Michael", and why the dragon then attacked us. Though the reason a dragon has such an ordinary name is probably more interesting at this point. Miranda, once again a victim of poor translation, says "This is just my guess, but in the moon, I think some sort of feeling that exists in our heart materializes itself." Haschel, also making this feel like an early 2000s anime fan sub, says "You mean Rose had some caring feelings for her Vassal Dragon?" Come on man, It is almost amazing how clunky this translation can be sometimes. Also, I like the term Vassal Dragon, it is yet another smart medieval callback, if Dragoons are Dragon Knights, Dragons are their Vassals. Kinda cool. Anyway, Meru tells us that after flying around, she thinks this place looks like Home of Gigantos. What a terrible name of a terrible race with a terrible main character and sole survivor, Kongol... Kongol can for some reason tell this is the "Old Holy Land" from "Long long ago"...Like, how....He wasn't there, was he? Suddenly, theres weird screaming and slashing sounds, a fight is going on, with someone yelling about killing all Gigantos. I am rooting for this person, even though I know they won't succeed... After more screams, theres a horse sound, and someone offscreen says "Hey!! Doel's coming, Run!" Doel rides up with some knights on horses, chasing away some weird gangly bandit guys. He proclaims "There will be no one to devastate the Holy Land of the Gigantos ever." I guess this is 20 years ago, so I guess Kongol could have been alive, so its not THAT long ago when you have someone who is 12,000 YEARS OLD in the party... One of the knights believes they may be too late, and says only if "Your Majesty Carlo gives us permission to dispatch." Doel responds "Don't talk about him. He is... no longer alive." I'm not sure who this is they are talking about...Maybe Albert's dad? One of the knights notices something inside a nearby shrine Out of the shrine comes.....ugh..oh god... A baby Giganto.....which is LITERALLY just Kongol's model, but slightly shrunken down. It has all the same animations and everything... Doel proclaims "I am the new King of Serdio, Doel. There are no more people to persecute you. You can live in peace from now on. What;s your name?" Baby Kongol replies "Human! Get out!" One of the knights responds "Don't be so disrespectful! His majesty doel tried to help Gigantos fight against Humans!!" Oh man, can we do some rewriting history right now and erase Kongol from existance? That would be cool. Doel steps closer on his horse, saying "I am a human, but before that, I am a man who wishes the coexistence of all species. Don't you like peace?" Really makes you wonder how he became the crazy mofo who was trying to murder us all on Disk 1... Baby Kongol tells us "Me....Kongol. Everybody dead. Kongol alone." Literally nothing has changed about him in 20 years. What a garbage character. Even his speech is just as shit now as it was back then. Doel asks if Kongol wants to come with them. We pan back to the real party to see Kongol's shoulders jittering. Meru then wonders aloud "Is this something in Kongol's heart?" Albert then wonders "Then is that the truth of my Uncle Doel?" Kongol then grabs his head and starts repeatedly screaming Emperor Doel!! Kongol says "I have something to do! I go now!" Fuck. I wish I could just say "good luck dumbass, don't come back please, buh bye" but that just isn't an option... But then....curiously...the party just reforms, Kongol included into Albert.......KONGOL! CAN YOU NOT EVEN DO THIS NARRATIVE FORMULA RIGHT!?! Kongol then tells us in the next room "Emperor Doel said. Strong leader is required to make equal world. Strong leader needs strong power. Kongol will get strongest power. Dart needs Kongol, so Kongol go." Is he finally gonna get his dragon...LITERALLY at the end of the game? He walks off alone to this weird ritual shrine, where some weird armored guy is, named Indora He says "So, you came." meaning he was expecting Kongol? Kongol replies "Brother. I became stronger." Well that explains that. He continues, brandishing his axe "Brother the strongest. Kongol admire brother. Brother Kongol's pride. Brother, Kongol needs power. to help Dart. To save world. Brother, Kongol overcomes now. Kongol overcomes brother!" Though all of this, every few sentences, Indora goes "I see." I imagine this sounding like a conversation between Giant Baba and a Japanese commentator, except stupid. And the battle begins. I'm sure this will be not great, my literal first time using Kongol, and he has most of his default gear, because fuck Kongol. But even the developers had to have anticipated this. Huh. Apparently his brother auto counters. And wonders why Kongol is so weak....Yep. hard to disagree. Kongol deals 194 damage. Indora deals 193 damage.... This fight is dumb. Apparently he only counters if you miss the Addition. I think Kongol did that in your bossfight with him, so I guess thats a good callback. Basically, a perfect summary of this battle: youtu.be/3QvAs8LpmRE?t=70After approximately half an hour of bumpin meat, which consists of basically just mashing attack, and occasionally hitting defend, I win the fight. No dialog, no gimmicks, just the most boring fight in the world, which is perfectly fitting for Kongol's 1 dimensional character. Indora declares Kongol the strongest hero, and tells him to go to the people who need his power. In the classic form of an idiot trying to sound profound, Indora tells us "To fulfill desire is the power of destruction. To care for others is the power of truth...You recieved the power to overcome Indora...The Strongest power....Kongol, the pride of Indora.... Well Done..." He then hands Kongol....The Dragoon Spirit of the Golden Dragon..... What? WHY THIS LATE IN THE GAME!?! Great, I'll be sure to literally never use this. The party runs in after Indora disappears in a flash of light. Haschel asks "You conquered it, didn't you?" Kongol, being simple as ever, "Brother...praised Kongol. First time for Kongol to praise. Kongol happy." Haschel wonders what the moon is trying to show everyone with these flashbacks and hypothetical scenarios. Miranda comments "It's not a moon anymore. It;s the flesh of the God of Destruction." Albert adds, being one of the only people not to have one of these fights yet, "And...What the God of Destruction wants to show us is annihilation." Meru is once again the lore wrangler, reminding us that theres a plot, telling us we need to go find Dart and Rose. Beneath the battle area we were just in is the area where we rescued that one guy during disk 2. And Kongol's best armor....great....thanks... We fall through another one of those reality cracks, and end up back in that cave where we fought Haschel's daughter. I suspect I know where to go next. After arriving back in Bale, the party decides to wait there, instead of wandering around aimlessly looking for Dart. The perspective then changes to Dart and Rose In medias res, in some weird jungle full of bones, not sure if we had been here previously. Dart reminds Rose...but actually me, that they lost everyone because of the dragon, but wonders why? He wonders why Rose's dragon attacked us. Rose says nothing. Dart wonders "Was it to bring the two of us here, the place filled with dragons?" Rose finally responds "I think....We will find out. Soon." Even she doesn't know. Or does and isn't telling us. Rose says "Lets go. In order to fight the Virage Embryo, or face off with Zieg, I need everybody with me." Weird way to put it. She is like really basking in this whole "being the protagonist thing." Dart just says "Rose...." as if to say "I thought I was the main character!" Rose responds "Don't be so shocked, I trust everybody too." I guess this is just a faint attempt at building her character. Now this is interesting. When I regain control, Rose doesn't walk back into Dart. Instead, she follows him, more akin to FFVIII. It's really interesting how they use this whole literal concept of the party joining together almost as a narrative tool. And it's like they are putting the two of them on equal ground, like neither one is in charge, they are more traveling together. We walk a little up the road to find a bunch of baby dragons. Rose refers to them as Pseudo Dragons. She muses "It seems everything, including the future and the past, exist here. My favorite Pseudo Dragons didn't make it to the present age. But I am encounter the past now. But, we don't have time to be sentimental. Let's go." After that, she finally walks into Dart, joining properly. We eventually arrive at the petrified corpse of a large dragon. Rose tells us that she knows this place. She tells is that this is where she met Michael for the first time. It then flashes back, there are Rose and Zieg. There, Rose is speaking to a cloud of black smoke "Darkness Dragon...Sorry. We don't have time." I guess she never thought she had time. She walks into the black cloud, picking up the Dragoon Spirit. She says "Winglies are mighty. Mighty enough to annihilate us, and the entire species. In order to liberate Humans, we have to sacrifice you, Dragon. Now is the time to decide, extinction or war." She then transforms into a dragoon for the first time, with Zieg saying "we choose 'war'" A small dragon stands where the cloud once was. Zieg claims "This Dragoon Spirit from the Darkness Dragon, and this newborn dragon will be the spearhead of this war." Rose claims that this baby needs a name. She goes with the incredibly snappy "Black Burst Dragon, Michael." Rose asks Zieg about the name, and he responds "Rose's Cassal Dragon, The Darkness Dragoon, The Black Burst Dragon Michael. It's a good name." Jesus Zieg, no need to make it roll off the tongue any more than it already does... They claim it's time to go, and that the real war hasn't started quite yet. The flashback ends. Presently, the petrified dragon starts rumbling and glowing, and Rose asks Michael "Don't you recognize me!?" Unlike previous fights like this, Rose isn't fighting alone, Dart is with her. Still can't use Dragoon powers, like the other fights. And....Dart's attack just did no damage....Oh dear... Annnd neither did Rose's....oh no... And he has like...super moves....this feels...like trouble... Rose starts talking. She once again asks if Michael recognizes her. This seems like it might be a timed deal... Dart suspects talking isn't working. Rose believes "he's out of control, just like last time. He has forgotten the pride of a dragon and turned himself into a mere raving beast." Dart replies "It has a wildness even beyond that of Feyrbrand! Damn!" Oh hey, Feybrand, I remember him...I think...from Disk 1? After guarding exclusively through the second phase, Dart laments "What a dragon! It yields to neither sword nor magic!!" Rose, not meaning to toot her own horn but totally tooting her own horn, claims "The Darkness Dragon is the Strongest Dragon of all, having the best attack and defense, along with having the best agility." Well La De Da, dragon stepmom. Dart replies to Rose's dragon stroking with "I don't need to hear about it! Is there anyway to defeat him!?" She doesn't respond, the battle just continues. And like...blocking ain't doin much.... Rose once again goes back to stroking her Dragon, claiming "Michael's shell is special armor for the Darkness Dragon. It Repels any attack by the enemy." Oh, good.... Dart logically wonders what we should do. Rose then tells us there is only one blind spot. Dart asks frantically "What is it!? Tell me now!" Rose doesn't tell him now. The battle continues. I am given a choice. "God! What should I do!?" and my choices are to either "Tell Dart the blind spot." or "I can't" I am interested in seen what the latter does. Dart screams "What are you doing!? We need to do something or we are finished!" He's not wrong. I get to choose again, this time choosing correctly. "After he shoots the black laser, his defense falls a second, showing his heart. Thats his only week(spelled like this in the game) spot" good job translators. I think thats only the first actually ridiculous mispelling in this script so far. They had a lot of weird syntax, but this is the first proper "Off Course" moment. Also, I am shocked that I need to actually fight this fight now... Luckily, after only 1 or 2 attacks, he disappears into the light. Also we gained like 2 levels each that fight. After the fight, Rose tells us "A dragon's body is capable of enormous endurance. But, it's heart is not. After many fights, it becomes savage, and starts to blindly attack people and in the end, it won't listen to the orders of Dragoons either. Thats why I killed Michael!! I killed him with these hands!!" Easy Rose. Damn. Dart says "Thats enough of looking back at the past. You have lived for 10,000 years (it's 12,000, but whatever) because you didn't want to see the future to be destroyed, right Rose?" Yeesh, were these translators in a hurry for the end of the game? Rose replies "You are right. Thank you. You reminded me of what's important." I meaaaan, does that REALLY resolve this issue? It's more of a deflection really....not really development here. Dart reminds her that we still need to find Albert and the others. I like that my party is basically canon at this point. After moving through a cave, we found our way back to Bale for whatever reason. Whatever, it's fine. Everyone greets them excited to see they are OK, and Dart, apparently an asshole, tells them "All of you look...all right." well shit Dart, were you expecting them to dress up for you? Albert is already a king for fucks sake. Albert then initiates the obligatory "lets exchange information so everyone knows what everyone else knows for the sake of smoothing out the plot in the future" scene. Dart seems as surprised as everyone else about the revelation that Doel might not have been an asshole after all, which, much like the whole "Kongol getting his dragoon spirit like 2 disks after he should have" thing, revisiting this plotline from Disk 1 feels a little strange and late. I'm hoping it pays off in some meaningful way. Dart notes that it was Doel who kiled King Carlo, who I guess is Albert's dad. Rose keeps the plot moving, telling us the obvious "I think we will find out what the moon wants to show us when we meet Doel." The gates to his palace were blocked before because he was out on campaign. That event is done now, so I assume that is where we go next. Rose is REALLY on the nose about it, almost to the point of breaking kayfabe, saying "Besides, I think we have to see it in order to proceeed. Given the facts so far." Jeez Rose....why not just spell it out for us? But, I am saving now, at EXACTLY 69 hours, and 0 minutes. I feel like that is a sign to maybe try to finish this another time. It is kind of insane that they would have HOURS of game past the point of no return. Like, I was SURE I was gonna beat this tonight. But I know for sure I've got at least a few more hours of this game left, Meru, Albert, and Dart haven't had individual boss battles yet, (I mean, if fucking KONGOL gets one, everyone is) They've had this pattern a few times now, and it feels like they are intentionally going out of their way to drive each characters individual plot, independent of the other characters for the most part, and they make sure every character gets screen time, which while not a bad thing, feels painfully obvious, and as a result it rarely feels like they are building relationships between the characters that feel meaningful in any way. It feels less like an ensemble cast and more like Cowboy Bebop where they are just 4 people who live together mostly out of convenience. There characters don't really feel as intertwined as they should. In something like FFX, it feels like each character has some level of relationship with the others. Tidus and Auron are like a stepdad and stepson, Tidus and Wakka are like bros who like sports, Lulu feels like Tidus' tourguide through Spira for the most part, and so on. That doesn't really exist here. Honestly, Dart feels a bit like he lost most of his character after the big Black Monster reveal. I mean we know he still has the romance plot with Shana, but shes been gone for a whole disk now, so without all that he just feels...empty, like he has nothing else really going on, no motivations, no personality beyond that. Anyway, next time I'm gonna try to actually beat the game.
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Post by Mario the black knight on Oct 5, 2021 4:28:28 GMT -5
Lets finish this. So at the gate of the castle, Albert just strolls up and asks them in Uncle Doel is in....even though this is supposed to be 20 years ago, so he would have been a kid then, but you know, whatever The gatekeepers say they've been waiting for Albert, which is...weird. They step aside and tell us "Go right in." Inside, we find ourselves in the throne room we saw on Disk 1. Albert tells the party he wants to go alone from here, which like, duh. This should be easy peasy, Albert is my ringer at this point in battle, highest HP, highest attack power, and regens HP every turn. Doel also tells us that he's been waiting for Albert. Guess everyone saw us screwing around in the inn Albert responds "You 'have been waiting'. Then it's simple. you must know the reason why I'm here." Oh shit. Albert ain't playin. Since these are reflections of the character's minds and desires and whatnot, perhaps this ones is a bit smarter because Albert is seen as the smart guy in the party. Doel replies "You are here to find out the truth about whether I assassinated your father, my brother, and the reason. I would say... It was to save serdio from an incompetent leader named Carlo." Hot damn. Both sides packin HEAT. Albert doesn't take this, "My father was not incompetent! He was loved by his people and admired by his vassals!" This version of Doel clearly doesn't care about Kayfabe. "You were a mere Six-Year old kid back then. How could you know!?" So clearly Albert's constructs are smart compared to the others. He continues. "What was broght on the people by overtaxation and disorder!? What can ministers soaked in corruption do!? you have been given false truths, so how could you know!?" Albert slowly turned his back throughout that speech, looking distraught. He responds "Even if....It was the truth, you shouldn't have killed him!" I swear, at this point, the game isn't even keeping up pretenses, Doel replies "I guess you won't be satisfied with words. Defeat me to find out the rest!" Like...what even is the forth wall? REMATCH! And unlike the rest of these battles, I am absolutely trashing this fight. 2 attacks and I've already got 1 of his swords broken. Albert starts talking "Uncle Doel! Why did you eliminate my father!!" Doel responds "It's obvious! The people of Serdio wanted me! they desired my power as the true leader!!" Yeah, that totally sounds like a thing a justified leader would say... Albert ain't takin this "It is not true!! What people desire is not power. It's peace." Doel replies "Who do you think brought peace!? who do you think brought over and hope back to Serdio!? Peace cannot be maintained without power!" I mean.....OK, got us there... Albert continues the debate though, "Uncle, you oppressed people with your power. How much value can we give to such a transient peace. What people need is...." The punctuation in this is so strange. Was their question mark key broken? Doel, totally a good guy, says "I don;t need to hear about things like justice or love!" Albert doesn't let up however, "Power alone does not solve anything!" They keep going, which I guess I should expect from Albert, more of an intellectual than a fighter. Doel replies "The ideals and reality are different!!" Albert cries out "Wake up uncle!" He responds "You are so persistant!!" And the battle continues After breaking his other sword, Doel is shocked. "I cannot believe this. How can someone as helpless as you be this powerful!?" Oh, theres their question mark. Albert replies "You wouldn't understand this, uncle. You have had faith only in your own power." Doel says "What did you say!?" I mean...he barely said anything...but like... Hoo boy. Albert says (and I quote) "I'mm different from you and I am not alone. My friends have always been at my side during the many occations when I was dispirited. I;ve overcome difficulties." Did they proofread Disk 4 like...at all? Doel seemingly answers my question. "Ha ha! Silly!!" It's unclear who is speaking in this next part, due to the framing of the scene, and just...well... "When I young, my father would often say that he didn't have quite the stature to be King. Without Doel, he couldn't do anything. He also said it is you who was most likely to take the throne." Theres a break in the dialog, and but the camera frame remains in this ambiguous position framing both characters. "I can't believe it. That's...why... What did he see in me?" I think this line is supposed to be Albert. But same framing. "My father trusted in you. if you had gotten together and govern the country, this tragedy would have never happened." The frame finally switches to Doel. "Albert! I'm a mere shadow of Carlo! I have no way left but to go forward!" Very different tone than like, a few lines ago....but maybe this is an unclear translation? The battle then continues again. Literally 2 attack later, Doel falls down, electrified. He says "Why? Why doesn't my power work!? Why am I losing even though my power exceeds yours!?" Brother, I just squashed yo ass like your name was Fuego. Your power ain't shit to me. Albert replies "For Lavitz, who devoted himself to me and fell. For knights who fell in battle. I have to win for them!" I feel like maybe this fight was supposed to be harder...? My loadout for Albert might just be that strong. Doel cries out "Absurd! You are saying I have been wrong." Yes. We are saying exactly that. We are back in this weird camera shot again, so it's unclear who is speaking again. "I lost so many people in battle. In my times of deep sorrow and despair, my many friends like Dart imparted to me courage and strength." In retrospect, after that line break, it became clear that that was Albert. Name tags. This is why they exist... Doel starts speaking again. "I see. You are not fighting alone. That's why I cannot defeat you." I mean....It's weird they would go the power of friendship route, after Albert just told everybody to stand outside... Doel continues "I've been unwise to become infatuated by power. But, I have no regrets. Carlo, the king's last words were, to take care of this country and you. We have different ways, but they lead to the same intention. as a man who grieves for the country. The rest depends on you." Doel then fades into yellow light like the others. Outside of the battle, Doel fades from the room, and Albert soliloquies "It was the sad truth, wasn't it? But the annililation of the world will generate a sadness equal to the number of living people." Dart and the others walk in, hearing the speech. Dart responds to it, saying "I won't let it." You know Dart...you always say that...and yet... Dart continues "I will save both the world and Shana! We are here for that!" Way to bury Albert's story with your own, Dart. Give the man a damn minute in the spotlight. After some aimless wandering, we end up where we were before the Dragon attacked us, back at that big crazy palace. Dart asks "What is that?" Miranda comments that she thought it would be impossible for there to be a more beautiful palace than the Crystal Palace, surely forgetting that got blown up on Disk 3 Meru tells us that it is the Palace of the Winglys....without explaining which one... Albert tells us it could not be made with human technology, showing he wasn't listening to the conversation at all Meru says "Lets go!" running up the light bridge, before the bridge is cut, and she is left flying. She then gets teleported away. At least she didn't just tell the party "I'm gonna go alone now for my obvious individual fight, see you guys in like 30 minutes I guess." She appears in this room with what looks like some sort of angel/valkylrie type woman. Meru seems confused that she is alone, knowing she will obviously get completely obliterated in this fight without help since I've literally never had her in my party before....like ever. Like I literally do not know what he battle model looks like....so uhh She then looks terrified when she sees the woman, saying "The...The Archangel!? Why are you here!?" She replies "Meru...I know everything. You threw the pride of the sublime Winglies away, and have been with barbaric humans, haven't you" I mean, in her defense, Kongol isn't a human. The humans are mostly fine. Meru defends her position, stating "Archangel! Humans are not barbaric! They have many good things, which we Winglies don't have!" So I guess Archangels are Winglies? The Archangel replies "Silence. Fine, Meru. I will make you remmeber the Sublime Spirit of a Wingly." Welp. We so dead. Well, I guess maybe the developers planned for this eventuality. The boss was feeling bad about how hard she was kicking our ass, so she literally just healed me....Wow. Also, Meru's Addition is SO HARD! Ugh. I FINALLY hit a full Addition. And Archangel starts talking. "Wake Up, Meru. You have already seen, the reality of arrogant and ignoble Humans!" Meru replies "Archangel! HUmans can never be ignoble creatures! They help each other when they are in trouble, even if they don't know each other. and above all, they have dreams and hopes." Archangel replies "Silly. Humans are feebleminded even more than you would think. We have to rule them or eventually they will cease to exist." I wonder if Meru's hallucination is more fantastical and religious because shes younger than the rest of the party? Anyway, Meru replies "I don't think so!! All the lives in this world are equal. We shouldn't rule or be ruled!" You heard it here, Meru total communist confirmed. Her weapon is a hammer...so like...actually... Annnnd the fight continues Annnnnnd...uhh....Archangel just like, randomly summoned a bunch of angels, and at one point was riding a 3 headed elephant...and like...that was weird...and now I have 1 HP.......huh.....OK..... Annnnd then she just healed me? The fuck is this fight? After 2 more attacks, she starts talking again. This fight must just be scaling REALLY hard for how terrible Meru's stats are... She says "Have you forgotten what we have accomplished? We have stabilized a chaotic world, and saved tribes that otherwise would be extinct." Meru replies "Really!" If only I had used Meru...so she could have maybe seen more of the story... The Archangel tells us "Once there was 107 species, and half no longer exist. Our rule prevents the subversion of the world." I don't think that word means what you think it means....? Also, I've encountered at least 107 monster types in this game....so like...Also, there was a 109th species up on the tree....but like you are an angel, so you are probably the last person who wants to hear their religion is a lie so...carry on I guess.. Meru, showing spunk, says "That's wrong. 'Cuz there were species that were stamped out during the Winglies' domination!" The archangel replies "They were meant to be extinct from the beginning." But like...so were all the races....religious folk... Meru is DONE with the respect. "You Liar!! You destroyed them because they rebelled against the Winglies!!" The archangel says "Meru! A heretic like you disturbs our ordered world." Meru replies with a simple "Shut up!!" That'll do it. I mean, she just healed you, when she has all the right in the world to crush you into dust in 1 hit, so prolly tone down the sass? Nope. After a few more hits, Meru goes in. "You are not real! You are an invented god so they can justify themselves, Archangel." But Archangel goes deeper. "It's not true. I am a reflection of your mind. The distain for humans in your mind created me." Say WHAAAAT!? Meru is in disbelief. But Archangel tears in even more. "Meru, don't lie to yourself. You think you can continue to deceive yourself playing a fool like that?" Meru replies "You fool! Don't tell me crazy things!" And the fight continues. And more trippy elephant angel knights of round going on. Meru passionately declares "I love Humans! I adore Dart, Shana and the others! This is real!!" The Archangel responds "...Meru" But Meru tells her off "Get out of my sight!! I love humans." And just like that, The Archangel disappears. Hoo boy, lets see how many levels Meru gets. So 2 and a half levels, and a new Addition. Wow. After the fight, Dart and the others run in.....with no explanation of how they got to the other side of the open abyss....but sure, whatever, found an airship or something... Dart asks if Meru is OK, and Meru replies "Of course I am!?" not sounding sure... She then says "Let's go!" and the party reorganizes. No words shared whatsoever about that encounter...It's interesting how she keeps these doubts she has hidden completely from the party. In the center of the Archangel room there is a teleporter. We take that up, and land in this weird creepy room with like reflective cubes everywhere and TV static on some of them......It honestly gives me PS2 menu vibes...which is both cool and creepy. Dart says "What is going on here!? It is different from any part of the world we've known." Rose agrees "Indeed, the places we have been looked like places on earth. But this is a completely different world." Is this the aliens part? Dart asks "Don't tell me, this is the core of the moon!?" Rose replies "This look is appropriate for the world of the Virage Embryo, the God of Destruction, to be born." Dart says "Let's hurry up! If this is our destination, my dad should be heading here too!" I mean....we still haven't done a story battle for Dart, unless we are assuming the battle with Zieg is his battle, but that feels unlikely. As we approach the screens....they all flicker onto a picture of the Moon That Never Sets.....creepy... Someone speaks in this room with a huge screen that looks to be displaying a city of fire? "My world, my hearing my.." Dart wonders who it is. "My world. My future. My heart." Rose says that the voice is speaking directly to our minds. "...Dart." M'kay....The God of destruction knows our name....cool... Dart asks "Is it Shana!?" Using the 15th slot for possibly the last savepoint...Here we go... We enter what most certainly looks like a final boss arena, a creepy tunnel with a big weird monster in it, purple space outside the floating blocks. This definitely feels like it would belong in Dissdia Rose tells us what is in front of us is a Super Virage...."I guess he is acting as a gate eeper to protect the God of Destruction" So not even the final boss....Jeez... Dart declares "I don't care what is waiting for us! Yaaaaaaa!!" And here we go! Annnnnd he has an attack where he literally slams a galaxy into our faces and piledrives us into a planet. Cool. It does like....way less damage than you might expect something like that to do. But still like...a lot. So after a pretty difficult, but not as bad as I was expecting battle, Dart asks a question he maybe should have asked BEFORE brandishing his sword and sallying forth.... "Was the Super Virage that we just defeated, in reality, Shana?" Rose says "I don't think so." Well I mean, y'all better hope not! Dart, all of a sudden very interested in thinking things through, "Why are you so sure!?" Rose responds "We, well...." She was probably stopping herself from saying "It would have been WAY WAY easier" Albert interjects, telling Dart to pull himself together. And then we regain control. Onward through the scary tunnel... We get this creepy trip hop remix of the prophecy theme in this area which is cool At the core, we find none other than Shana, floating in this ethereal sphere. Dart goes to grab her, when Zieg drops down, slicing at Dart, and taking his Dragoon Spirit. Oh good.... Rose draws her weapon and tells Zieg "You don't deserve to use Spirits!" The gem starts glowing, and Zieg says "You say it even after this?" Oh dear. Rose is shocked that the Red Eyed dragon still recognises him Zieg replies "This is the truth. And the Annihilation of the world that is about to occur is the truth as well" Ugh, he's so 1 dimensional.... Dart says what he should have said all along "Dad! Stop it!" He continues "The power is... not generated for that!!" Not sure which power he means, but OK Zieg says "Everything was born to die!! it's the same for spirits or the world!! Learn through your body!" err....what? Annnnd another boss fight... I used a water spell on Zieg. He basically ignored it, called Dart weak, then used one of Dart's best Dragoon moves against him, but since he has the Red Dragoon armor, it did literally nothing. Then like Dart was like "Darn, this is my father's power...like it did literally anything to him.... welp. So after a...kinda not terribly hard battle, because he couldn't do any damage to Dart, Zieg turns and says "The time has come, I no longer need this flesh..." He then collapses, and this crazy ass demon guy comes out of him, and Rose recognizes him as Melbu Frahma, which like...feels almost obvious on the reveal, but I guess it makes more sense than Evil Zieg, which makes me think a babyface redemption is coming. Melbu Framha addresses us, "I am the famous Melbu Frahma, Supreme leader of the Winglies. I've bee waiting for this moment for over 10,000 years." You know...whatever happened to 12,000? Did they just forget? Rose, playing the part of Dart in this scene, being the asker of obvious questions, asks "Why!? You must have been defeated by Zieg!!" Melbu pushes the boundaries of what you can say in a T Rated game by telling us "It's true that the sword of that man penetrated me." "But, what vanished is only my flesh. I cast a petrifying spell on the man, at the same time, I transmigrated my soul to the spirit. The sublime soul is immortal." Dart takes back the role of asking unnecessary questions, asking "How long have you been manipulating my dad!?" Melbu replies "At that moment, I reentered the light. the first light after 11,000 years. When the Black Monster came to Neet, that foolish soul tried to release the power of the Dragoon, without knowing that I was waiting for that moment!!" "So...It was then!!" Rose says, ambiguously, with a flashback certainly imminent Melbu says "I was released from the spirit and revived! In order to obtain an eternal body that is proper for an immortal soul!! and now, I am becoming a god!!" ...This is basically Sephiroth's plan....Like....almost exactly....except like just convoluted enough to be called different. And worse. He suddenly rushes back to where Shana is, pulls her from the Embryo where she was about to fuse, and tosses her aside, and jumps in inside, because this crazy ass demon boss thing. Rose says "Is he merging with the virage Embryo!?" Dart adds "Is he gonna be the god instead of Shana!?" I mean...the plan KINDA makes sense...but like also, wasn't the spirit the part that was important to the Virage Embryo, not the body...? Melbu, reading this post, replies "You are right. I obtained the flesh of the God of Destruction!! I am the "God" Himself" From offscreen. "A god? Don't make me laugh." I would put money on this being Lloyd. Coming back for a babyface turn. B) Nailed it. Lloyd declares "I cannot die with the wrong god still around! There is no space for you in my Utopia!!" I mean...Antihero....close enough. WHAT!?!!?! OK, for a second, they made it look like I was gonna get to play as like, Super Lloyd, but they were just using the battle engine to set up another pseudo FMV sequence, Lloyd goes all super sayian on Melbu, throws a shitload of magic at him, he is basically unphased, and Melbu then shoots this crazy laser beam at Lloyd and 1-shots him seemingly dead. Which, considering how he did Lavitz, is sort of a nice symmetry What I find funny is the results screen for the battle then showed up.... For no experience with just Dart.... Jank. As Lloyd dies, his Dragoon Spirit from the Divine Dragon glows. We now have his dragoon spirit and the almighty Dragon Buster that wasted Lavitz all those disks ago. Dart asks the dying man if he was here to give us this, as if to justify yoinking his shit. Lloyd, not totally dead yet, replies "Don;t get conceited. I just ended up here while I was pursuing my own ideal." Fair enough. Dart says "Yeah right." as if it's impossible that he didn't bring all this nice shit as a gift for Dart. Lloyd tells us "His birth will be the death of the world. Hurry Up... Stop him...Farewell,....people who confront the fate of Soa....." He disappears in a flash of light, and we get the Divine Dragoon Spirit and the Dragon Buster Interestingly, Rose gets the Dragon Buster, not Dart. And it is like 3 times as strong as her previous weapon...so thats neat. It looks like it's the strongest weapon in the party by a lot. Dart instead gets the Divine Dragoon Spirit, because Zieg still has his. Interesting. Now I can talk to everyone in the party as NPCs. Meru tells us "I was gonna give you a little tour, but I ended up coming all the way here. But I was right. I was right in following Dart. I realized it. In this world, there are lots of people living with lots of thoughts. So that there are lots of fights. But there is a lot of happyness and joy as well. This is such an awesome world, I won't let him destroy it. I'm totally ready to go!" To Shana, he simply says "Wait for me a little..." To Rose, Dart asks "Are you ready?" to which she replies "Yes. Any time." Sorta sums that up. Albert says "We have been together since the Moon Gem was taken and Lavitz passed away. We have fought, laughed, cried, and walked together all the way here. But we have to end the walk here. For the sake of the goal that led us here. And for the sake of all living creatures. Now lets go!" Haschel says "Dart, you look just like me when I was young. Did you notice? I didn't understand my daughter's pain at all. That's why I dragged it around until now. Shana is the chosen girl. As the soul to destroy the world... When she discovered it, nobody but Shana suffered as much. When Shana comes around, I don't know where we will be. But I know one thing, you are the only one who can ease Shana's pain. But it won;t be realized unless we stop the Wingly who wants to be a god. Now! Let's finish it up! I'll pound my secret art into his fat belly!!" Miranda says "When I decided to go with you, Queen Theresa told me. To Learn the Meaning of the 'fate' that Soa gave us. This is what I think. Fate belongs to those who are living. We can destory the 'fate' that somebody else made up. And this is the moment. Dart, lets do it! Stop him for all living creatures and their fate!!" And fuck Kongol. So now...it's 5am. I think I am gonna save this final battle for another night...I want to see this through, but fuck I am tired. At least I know next time is the Legend of Dragoon Finalie. God I hate ending on THIS though...
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Post by Mario the black knight on Oct 9, 2021 3:56:34 GMT -5
Well, here we go, the final battle. We begin with Meblu Frahma declaring "I have acquired all. The immortality... And the ultimate power... I am the god...who purifies the world...! Under the fate determined by Soa. Death to those who rebel against fate. Death to all life....! And may your death bless the wnew world to which I shall descend!!" Dart replies with what has effectively become his catchphrase on Disk 4: "We won't let you!!" He then follows up all heroic like: "We are the Dragoons!! We are ready to fight against fate!! Lets go!!" And the fight begins!! Well, I started the fight very poorly, most of my party was still weak from the fight with Zieg, and I have almost no items left....so fun. I had to build up my Spirit again, which with everyone but Dart is SUPER slow. Then Dart got Petrified, and I had no item to heal him, so the only way to heal him was to get everyone up to full power and go into Special, because that cures statuses, including Petrify, which is annoying because I wanted to see Divine Dragon's Dimension, but Dark Dragon Dimension will have to do Dart in Divine Dragon form looks CRAZY He's got 7 wings like the Divine Dragon, and a bunch of moves inspired by him like all the crazy cannon moves. So thats awesome. The boss music honestly kinda sucks. Out of nowhere we got this weird transition, called "The First Generation" Melbu's form changes into...well...another weird shape, then the shit music comes back. After a hard fought battle, where Rose died, and I have no means to revive her, there was a weird thing It did "The Second Generation" and showed this sunny battlefield, almost desert like, but then skipped straight to the "Third Generation" which was this cool rainy battlefield, that was like an island...and then it skipped that too and went straight to the "Forth Generation" which is still on an island, a new island, and now Melbu is like....OK, I can't describe any of his forms, they are all ludicrously abstract. So I dunno if I hit him so hard that I skipped 3 forms, or if the game is taking pity on me, or if that was supposed to happen all along. I guess I'll continue, but at this point, I have like 3 MP healing items, a couple worthless attack items, and thats it, no means of healing HP besides blocking...this should go well.... Thoughout the battle, it has cycled through day time and night time, and it's not clear what it means... It's not linked to damage dealt, since he has Dart's attack command blocked, so theres not much I can do in that respect, I'm not sure what it means. We then make it to the "Fifth Generation" where grass grows, and life forms in the water. I think these are supposed to be phases of evolution or something? The "Sixth Generation" shows a bunch of images of ancient peoples, a lot of which looking like real historical stuff like Egyption depictions of humanity, like the Sea Peoples and some early Greek stuff, pretty clever. And now the battlefield looks like an island of bones, surrounded by blood or possibly lava. And Melbu is still weird.....and the music is the same shitty music as the first phase. They had these nice musical stingers for each generation...then back to this awful song. Welp, he got us.... I guess I'm gonna have to hope I can get back to the item shop and try again... Here we go, full power, round 2 Divine Dragon Dimension is colorful, but mostly disappointing. Seems like the generational gaps are the same every time. I can't even imagine how long this fight would be if I had to fight through 6+ phases.... Also, the fight might just be timed in terms of the generation jumps, like a number of boss turns passing. That might be the reference being made by the days and nights in the Forth Generation Phase, because he did the same 3 moves during the First Generation Phase, where he sucked up my characters 3 times and used them as weapons, then transitioned after I healed someone, rather than a damage transition. Uhhhhhhhh.... He did that galaxy face slam move that the Super Virage did....he didn't do that last time... Yep, that battle was 3 days and 3 nights, so it is just a timing thing. Makes me wonder if I'm just biding my time until the final phase or something Or maybe it's a time limit on the fight? I dunno. That would be a bit advanced given what this game has offered so far. OK, this phase has new attacks too...I wonder if maybe it couldn't use abilities that target all while not everyone is alive. That one just summoned a shitload of Winglys to attack me, first time they have referenced Winglys with the emperor of the Winglys OK, he just did a move where he sucked in the dragon spirits from Mayfil....So I guess that is what that was about... And now the dragoons are super weak....great.... And once again, we can't revert, so we are stuck like this...cool...thats great.... So dumb that we can't revert early... This fight is ridiculous. I'm out of healing items again, just watching my party get obliterated. He can use really powerful moves after every one of my turns, sometimes 2 between turns, and most of them are either insta kills or near insta kills and it just feels unfair. And he can just gib my dragoons, so theres no point in using them, so I don't know what to do. YES! ONE LAST ATTACK WITH ALBERT DID IT!! And now Dart randomly wakes up, and transforms into his Dragoon form, and with no MP, uses Divine Dragon Cannon...which kinda makes this frustration worth it because of how stupid this is, ha ha ha And FMV! OK....so uhh...A LOT to unpack here. So Dart lands the final blow, and then there is some of the most god awful voice acting I've ever heard, With Melbu blowing up and screaming about how he could be beat by inferior humans. Dart flies down in Divine Dragoon form and find Shana still laying there. Meanwhile Rose flies over to Zieg, who is waking up somehow after you know, getting body jacked and beat up by us. Zieg tells Rose that their journey is over, and asks her if she'll come with him. She tells him she will never leave his side again. Melbu starts to rise from the flames, and says he won't die just yet, shooting a beam at Dart, hitting him in the wings, and him resisting it, him trying to protect Shana and both of them making some of the most hilariously badly acted sounds and grunts I have ever heard, like seriously, I could have done a better job for both of them We then hear Zieg and Rose saying their goodbyes to Dart, Dart sounding confused, and Rose telling Dart she was glad he got to meet him, before they fly together into the remains of Melbu, and go all Independence day on his ass and blow him up. We see all of the Dragoons flying together so everyone can get their shit in, and they fly through the different holes and such to try to escape the explosion, kinda like the Death Star escape sequence They cut to the outside and theres this like green ooze flowing out of the holes, when everyone flies out, and then the whole Moon shrinks down into a single point, and then makes this MASSIVE nuclear mushroom cloud. Everyone is flying together seemingly a few miles out, Dart checks on Shana in his arms, shes fine, he smiles...then he like suddenly realizes what happens and screams "ROSE!! FATHER!!" like he finally realized they done got blowed up. We then cut to this weirdly framed Pseudo FMV sequence, where all the models have their regular textures and poly counts, but the actions all seem to be motion captured rather than canned animations like normal We follow this bird as it flies around the world. It starts with Haschel training Kongol in martial arts in his village Then the bird flies off to the Crystal Palace, and where Miranda is reunited with her sisters Then it flies off to Tiberoa, where I think Lisa talks to that random environmentalist guy, and none of the other party members are there...so uhh? OK? Then it flies to the palace in Serdio, where Albert marries Lisa's sister, I forget her name, but theres a grand celebration, and I guess the kingdoms are technically united, and Albert is a pimp. Then we see this small house, and an old lady opens the door, and Dart walks in, and I realize it's Lavitz house, and he leaves the portait of Lavitz someone gave us at the beginning of the game on the table, along with something else I couldn't recognize Then we cut to Seles, with Dart arriving home finally, Shana comes out of one of the buildings thats being rebuilt, and Dart puts an arm around her, before they look at the bird, and it flies away. Then we cut to the credits The credits theme is actually pretty decent www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLMQuYbh4q8I didn't like it initially, lyrical themes in this time period were generally bad, and the lyrics in this are kind of ass, but the instrumental is really good, I love the guitar and violins together, the blend of that fantasy sound with that almost R&B sound, very different for this style of game, but cool I did notice that Polyphony Digital, the people who did the graphics for the Gran Turismo games, helped with the FMVs, so that is a cool little tidbit After the credits, theres another scene, a nice scenic shot of the ocean, and this spire coming out of it that sorta looks like the tree that was holding The Moon before. The camera pans down until it reaches the bottom, where Rose and Dart/Zieg's Dragoon Spirit stones are sitting ingrained in the stone, together, before "The End" appears. Very cool end screen i.pinimg.com/originals/93/4f/4b/934f4b4b36d5178a575f0d5d9e29836d.pngJust a recreation of it, it seems. I have more thoughts, but like.....It's 6am....
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Post by Mario the black knight on Oct 9, 2021 17:12:39 GMT -5
So, my thoughts on this game are complex Was this game the "Final Fantasy Killer" it was meant to be. Definitely not. But was it worth playing. Yes. Aesthetically, it definitely lifted a lot of visual language and style from Final Fantasy for sure, but also had a feel that was all it's own. It mixed that Final Fantasy-esque aesthetic with some medieval visuals, like some of the FMVs on Disk 2 and 3. But ultimately, in a lot of places, not just the graphics, the game often did the fancy stuff poorly rather than the simple stuff well. There were plenty of places in the game where even being played on a PS3 the game would CHUG, down to under 10 frames per second on some of the higher res scenes. Which, looked good in terms of models, pushing the limit of what was possible on the hardware, but the chugging frame rate put a damper on those scenes. And it's not like FF wasn't guilty of doing this a couple of times during that era, but it was VERY rare compared to how often it happened in this game The overworlds felt good, the pre rendered backgrounds were usually at least OK, if a little bland in some places. The puzzles left something to be desired in the dungeons, they were usually on the tedious side. I generally liked how they handled encounters, rather than them being random, being based on a certain number of steps, so you knew when they were coming, but late in the game the encounter rate got to be a little annoying, but early on, it felt perfect, just enough encounters. The battle mechanics themselves left something to be desired after a while. It had some form of asynchonous battle clock, which I always prefer over the synchonous system other games use like FF1 and Pokemon. But the Addition system sorta falls flat pretty quick. While I like that the growth is predicated on the successful completion of the moves, you only get access to one of them every battle, rather than being able to choose any of the ones you know for each attack. The Dragoon transformations were cool and all, but their implementation was a little cumbersome. It didn't need an MP bar, it would have been better if you consumed Spirit charges for the 4 spells you had access to in the end game. It ultimately was just a thing you saved for boss fights though, so it didn't effect random encounters at all, which left you with effectively 1 offensive action you could take every battle, besides consumable spell items The item system I initially thought was cool, but very quickly just further limited actions during battle. The idea of it was to make sure you couldn't roll into each fight with like 100 potions and just reliably beat every enemy, and to encourage the player to use guarding instead, but I think they limited it a little too much, especially considering how much they clutter your inventory with attack items which ultimately end up being just OK and not really worth using. I did like that they tried to make guarding a legitimate action, which not a lot of games try to do, and I did end up using it, but at times I just felt like I was guarding for multiple turns at a time and not really doing anything. Basically the battle system needed a few more unique options to make the battles feel a little more strategic. I did feel like I needed to prepare for the boss fights, and I didn't hate all of them, but since there were so few options, pretty much all the battles boiled down to busting out your dragon moves at the start, then just hitting your Additions to make up the difference, nothing really clever there. The Menu felt kinda rough around the edges for sure. It had really weird translation stuff, and a lot of it didn't feel terribly functional. The equipment menu for example didn't let you pick each individual piece of equipment for each slot, it just kinda put all of the equipment for each character all in one menu, unsorted, and you had no real sense of what effect a piece of equipment would have compared to what you had equipped. But the equipment system was mostly just there...Like the best equipment was mostly just at the shopkeepers or in boxes directly on your route, with the ultimate weapons just being in the Moon, so it wasn't like you had to go out of your way for the best stuff. You had a weapon slot, head slot, body slot, boot slot, and accessory slot, and pretty much nothing but the weapon and the accessory really mattered, the rest had so few options that they barely effected anything. The music that played whenever you went to the menu was super dope though www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5rcSKydLEEThe story was.....fine. Not egregiously terrible, but also not terribly inspired, it definitely felt like it was following the trends of the time, aping on the broad strokes of norse legends, mysterious man with white hair telling you it was all going according to plan, it checked most of the "90s RPG Bingo" boxes. It suffered quite a bit from a lack of a serious protagonist. Like each disk felt like it had it's own protagonist in a way, but none of them really felt like a BIG bad. On Disk 1 you had Doel, on Disk 2 you had the Bandits, on Disk 3 you had the Divine Dragon, and generally through Disk 2 and 3 you had Lloyd, then for like 5 minutes we thought it was Emperor Diaz, but it turns out it was secretly Zieg, who it turns out was ACTUALLY secretly Melbu Frahma, it was just convoluted, and since they played Lloyd as a bit of an Anti-Hero, there was no one to really get invested in. You can't say they didn't try on...at least MOST of the characters....I guess they thought they needed an Amarant with Kongol just to check that box. I dunno. Dart's character sorta fell apart pretty quickly. Like once we found out about the Black Monster pretty much all of his motivation was gone, and they acted like adding Zieg as the Antagonist of Disk 4 would somehow keep him tied into the story, but it just felt hollow. At times I feel like they hinted at some sort of tension between him and Rose over what would need to be done with Shana, and that conflict would come to blows once confronted with her directly, with Rose wanting to kill her, while Dart wanting to save her serving as a flashpoint, but that just never came to pass. He just became cardboard and stereotypical. I was really hoping once we got to Disk 3 we were gonna dig into his character a bit and learn more about Dart specifically, but we kinda never did. Shana was just....not great. Like, she just had no sense of agency, and was mostly just this Deus Ex Machina for Dart who was like "I am a woman! I am weak" and it was like the center of a lot of weird, misogynist shit that just didn't make any sense, especially with all the other female characters in the story not being so frail. Miranda, for example, is Shana's direct reskin, and she has a great story! But they introduce her so late into the game that she doesn't have more time to develop. Like while Shana was perfectly content to take shit for just about anybody and be like "woe is me" Miranda didn't. Her and Rose had some friction for a bit, which lead to some great interactions, which demonstrated it was possible for the female characters to be good, but Shana just didn't measure up. Miranda didn't just feel like a pointless hardass either, she was a loose cannon, but she ends up developing over the short time she was with the party, and you begin to understand why she is how she is, something that could have developed a lot more if she had had more time in the party, or even replaced Shana as a whole. Lavitz was basically the sacrificial lamb of the story, playing the role of Aeris basically. And it's a shame too, because it felt like they invested a lot into him in a short period of time. They wanted to make you like him so that his loss felt more impactful, but they pulled the trigger too early, and the fact that they replaced him literally immediately really buried that idea of feeling the loss. If they had invested in other characters the way they invested in Lavitz, they might have had a better story. Albert replaced Lavitz, and initially he seemed like a massive dork, and was going to automatically have the stigma of being Lavitz' direct slot in replacement with so little buildup. But I didn't hate his character, he was passionate about knowledge and poetic, and the little side story between him and the princess in Tiberoa was great, like how he spends most of the boat trip from Tiberoa sulking, without being transparent about why. Ultimately the Serdio story gets lost in the shuffle after Disk 2 though, so he never felt too relevant after that until close to the end. Meru...ugh...Meru. Initally I just found her super annoying, basically just the "spunky" scantly clad anime teenager, the Yuffie of the party. But that big reveal that she was a Wingly was actually pretty great. That whole dimension of the story really added something to the game, without feeling forced at all. She gives off that Amish/Mormon kid who left the life sorta vibe. As annoying as she could be, she was a good character in the end. Haschel definitely felt a bit extra. But he wasn't like Kongol where he felt completely tacked on with no story whatsoever. The story with his daughter was fine, though the fact that he is technically Dart's Grandpa really didn't matter much. It was all so transparent. Like as soon as he was like "Oh, Claire is the name of my daughter AND your mom" at the START of Disk 2 it was plainly obvious. And the way they sorta dropped the storyline before they even arrived in Rouge didn't help his case either. I know they were probably just trying to imply that Haschel realized his daughter was dead after realizing Claire was Dart's mom and the current quest took priority, but there was never any closure to that fact. Haschel only barely acknowledges Dart sorta looks like him in his last dialog in the game, when they could have had a scene together putting the matter to rest and creating a deeper connection between the characters, but by the time they got there, the story was really in "hurry, we are running out of disk space" mode. He COULD have been good if they had made him more relevant basically. That leaves Rose. Initially I really didn't like her. She had that brooding "hmph, perhaps he IS the chosen one!" vibe to her initially, but they actually backed it up. She basically became the tragic hero of the story, which was a cool transition. I knew she was the Black Monster at like the beginning of Disk 2, so the reveal was pretty flat for me, but the way they treated the aftermath of that reveal was good, to an extent. I thought there would still be friction between her and Dart, and instead Dart just sorta excepted it and became mindless. The idea of her character was pretty cool, though they did sorta leave some threads hanging. For example, in Disk 2 she first references the choker, and a certain kind of madness that comes with being a Dragoon. It made me think that much more she was going to experience some sort of weird psychotic point in the game, where being alive for 12,000 years was gonna start getting to her, and driving her crazy. But even without all of that untouched potential, she ended up being a good character. And while her sacrifice felt a bit shoehorned in that final mediocre FMV, it made a lot of sense for her character arc to finally get to die, even though they again, don't do nearly enough with that fact. But the thing is a lot of relationships between the characters felt really basic and kind of weak. Like the bromance between Dart and Lavitz felt stronger than the bond between Dart and Shana, which felt mostly tepid by the time she lost her Dragoon Spirit because of how shitty of a dragoon she was and just left the party. Occasionally they would try to act like the group had some closer bond, but it mostly felt forced. Like for a little bit they sorta paired off Meru and Haschel, and it theoretically could have worked, but for whatever reason it just didn't. Overall I did like the worldbuilding though, the lore of the Dragon Campaign and how it shaped the world to come was cool and well told. Even the cool idea of the 3 relics of the Winglys being heirlooms to the human kingdoms after the end of the war, but those heirlooms being what locks the Signet spheres to stop the birth of the God of Destruction being another layer of that feels really well laid out. The thing that really held this game back, possibly more than the flawed character building, was the really shoddy translation. There were SO many scenes that were just ruined by weird syntax or spelling error, or just really strange phrasing. It just made the game feel unpolished and rough around the edges, along with a lot of the other flaws together. All in all though, I put about 75 into it, and it didn't feel like a waste. Though, I never did any of the sidequests, I'm not sure there were very many, or if they were worth doing since everyones best gear is already on the moon. Also, the game wasn't really suited to many sidequests, since it was so linear, another minor annoyance. The world map was basically just connect the dots, similar to Breath of Fire. I got a lot of ideas (mostly affirmation of what not to do, but also some new ideas as well), and it definitely felt like a worthwhile summer RPG. I would rate it on the same tier as Breath of Fire IV, where it's good, but not on Final Fantasy's level. But definitely better than stuff like the Tales series or some other lesser known RPGs of the time. There are a few I would still like to try, like Suikoden or revisiting Dragon Warrior VII, my first RPG ever, see what it would be like to play that now, now that I have a much deeper understanding of the genre. But the next time I play an RPG, it will probably either be Breath of Fire 3 or maybe getting my hands on FFX HD for PS4
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Post by Mario the black knight on Jan 3, 2022 5:18:43 GMT -5
So I think I'm done with Loop Hero
It was this strange Roguelike where your character walked a path, and fought really simple turn based fights automatically, and basically you would build a world around them, which each tile you put down effecting either the character or the path itself.
The tiles you would place off the path would usually augment the characters stats, like HP, attack speed, HP recovery, Exp gained from fights, etc. The fights give you the tiles, in the form of cards, which you hold onto like a deck, as well as equipment for your character, which gives them various stat enhancements.
Meanwhile, the tiles you placed on the path would usually effect the battles themselves, either what enemies would spawn, or stuff like villages that healed the player and gave them quests which powered up other monsters on the map, and so on.
Each time around the path raised the "loop level" which powers up the enemies, so the more loops you go, the higher the risk. At any time you can end your quest, with different consequences. If you are at the starting line of the loop, or the camp, you can leave with 100% of the resources you gathered. If you try to leave anywhere else on the path, you get to keep 60%.
The resources are used back at camp when you aren't on the quest. You get to build your camp in a way similar to the quests, except you use the resources gathered on the quest instead of the cards you use on the quests. These give you powerups that are like longterm growth compared to the temporary growth in the quests, your starting stats might be stronger, or you unlock new cards, new starting classes (which give the player different equipment types and play styles, the classes being Warrior, Rogue, and Necromancer) or "supplies" which are like long term equipment, as when the run ends, you lose all the gear you gathered during that run, it being converted to resources, since this is a roguelike.
It started out fun and novel, I really enjoyed the first two acts, but act 3 and 4 are such a grind. Each act is a different final boss to the run, which you reach if you put a sufficient amount of tiles down over the run without dying. The build up to the first two was fine, unlocking new parts of the camp felt sufficiently stimulating. But after beating the act 2 boss, act 3 was a much bigger grind, with the supplies not coming nearly fast enough to satisfy the upgrade requirements, and honestly, for this kind of passive gameplay, it doesn't take long before it feels like you are doing the same run over and over, and it gets REALLY tedious.
I really wanted to beat it, I gave it about a month on the final act, but the grind is just too much, and I'm really over it. It just feels like a chore to play.
So I switched to a game I got for christmas. Hades
It's really thematically appropriate for what I hope to accomplish this year, and it is WAY more fun.
Basically, you play as Zagreas, the son of Hades, who wants to escape from Tartarus. He gets help from the Olympian gods (Zeus, Athena, Artemis, etc) with each one giving you blessings which modify the playstyle of the game. You start with a legendary weapon, like a sword, bow, spear, that has lore behind it, tied to events in greek myth and so on, which is the base of your playstyle for that run, and everything builds on top of that, and between each escape attempt, you go back to the House of Hades and get to talk to people there, and learn more story. It's incredibly well paced, and the dialog does such a good job of reflecting what happens during runs, like if a certain enemy kills you, a character will notice that and talk about it, or when you meet certain gods, other gods will comment on that, and so on.
Its another roguelike, so of course when you die, everything resets, just like Loop Hero, but this one feels much better so far, not only because the story is way more compelling, but the gameplay feels more rewarding, each run feels like it unlocks something new.
The action is hack and slash, and like many others I have talked to have said, the action feels SO good, the movement speed is just right, the attacks have such good weight, the action is fast paced and frenetic, but not as chaotic as it looks to an outside observer, you can still make very deliberate actions, and have complex strategies, with such a simple starting base.
The soundtrack is incredible too, and very dynamic. The composer has done a bunch of other games for this company and he never disappoints. The music is one of the biggest features of their games.
Sad that Loop Hero ended up being a disappointment, but excited to get to work on Hades.
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Post by Mario the black knight on Jan 18, 2022 17:40:08 GMT -5
So I made it to the Champion of Elysium
So the Underworld is made up of different regions. You start at the bottom in Tartarus, then theres Asphodel, then Elysium, then I don't know what is above that yet.
The first boss is pretty easy to beat for me at this point. There are actually 3 bosses you can face at the end of Tartarus, the 3 Fury sisters. Megera is the first one. I basically step over her corpse on the way out. I think I literally lost to her one time. Alecto is the second, shes a little harder, but I usually beat her. Actually I made her kill herself once with her own attacks, that was pretty good. Then theres Tisiphone. Shes nuts. It took me a few tries before I was finally able to beat her.
Asphodel isn't too hard. It has more stage hazards, like all the lava everywhere, but it;s pretty straight forward. The boss there is the Hydra. He's also pretty straight forward, I just had a lot of trouble learning to beat him consistently. Asphodel is pretty much where you lock down your build, and figure out what skills you want to roll with based on what you picked up in Tartarus.
Elysium has been pretty meh for me so far, a lot of the enemies just feel like duplicates of the player character, so it feels a little lazy in that way, but I understand why they did it, all the heroes live in Elysium, etc. Usually if the abilities you took in the first two stages aren't gelling together nicely, this is where a good run goes to die.
I've only ever reached the boss of Elysium once, and it is Thesius and The Minotaur. I got pretty close in my first attempt, so I definitely feel like I can do it, I just got there with the bow, and the bow is a bit tough for that chaotic of a fight, because you need to stand still for a second to get power shots.
Great game though, I am loving the story, the gameplay is solid, the move speed is just so perfect, it feels really good, none of the weapons really feel bad. I definitely prefer the Spear, Shield, and Bow, over the sword and the fists, but I feel like a good run is possible with all of them. The game also gives you a lot of metrics for progress, so no single run feels like a waste.
I feel like I'm close to facing Hades himself.
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Post by Mario the black knight on Jan 27, 2022 4:28:07 GMT -5
Just beat Thesius and the Bull.
The next area after that is a maze with the gates to the underworld
They tease a fight with Cerberus, but obviously that ain't happening, the 3 headed good boy gets pets, not hit. So instead you have to go find him a treat in the dungeon which is like this little mini maze of encounters with some prize at the end of each, one of which will have whatever we're looking for
Unfortunately I died at the end of one of those, which annoys me
The build was SO good. It was this nice Shield build, where I had a ton of damage on the Special thanks to an early Zeus boon, combined with a Chaos boon which boosted the base damage a bunch, a boost to special speed from Hermes, and some nice attack knockback from Posiden. Combined that with crit chance from Artemis as well as homing arrows, and this run was kinda nuts, I just lacked sufficient defense. With an Athena dodge, this run would have been a winner, I know it.
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Post by Mario the black knight on Feb 4, 2022 4:30:05 GMT -5
ALMOST got out.
I made it past Cerberus by finding him a treat among the Ceyters, instead of fighting him, and upon opening the door, I saw the outside for the first time...To see Hades in his battle gear, ready to stop me himself.
We fought, but I was pretty worn down by that point, no Death Defiances left, low HP, but I had an incredible Spear build, big damage from Aphrodite, a couple of Daedalus hammers to tweak the spear's skills, and that cover fire skill from Artemis again with the homing arrows, AND the Athena dodge, which is without question her best skill, so I had a puncher's chance I felt. My damage and defense were there, but I had never done the fight before, so I didn't know his patterns. He only got me when I tried to do a spin, but he landed his spin move first.
It is an awesome fight though. And I love when a final boss theme integrates the motif of the game's main theme into it. It makes the fight feel 10 times more epic when you hear the main theme of the game play like that.
Everyone back in the house was saying I was SO close, it really kinda felt like they were cheering me on. Games don't do that nearly enough. Make you feel like your allies are really rooting for you to win.
I'll get him next time.
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Post by Mario the black knight on Feb 5, 2022 4:04:52 GMT -5
AGAIN!!
I had a similar Spear build, nice new Demeter boons, and a GIANT health pool, even had a Death Defiance left. I had him literally within an inch of his life, before I got hit from behind by an add he summonned
I COULD TASTE IT! I WAS SO CLOSE!!!
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Post by Mario the black knight on Feb 7, 2022 4:56:01 GMT -5
I BEAT HADES!
...then I found out he has a second phase....
I got to the top with all 3 of my Death Defiances, and a decent health pool, but I got there with Malphon, a weapon I am not terribly good with. It's a set of fists, so you have crazy fast damage output, but no range, so I had a lot of trouble dodging his attacks. I fought the fight aggressively, because I just assumed he had a single health bar, and used all 3 death defiances trying to clear the battle, the adds making it a more serious challenge than previous runs, but I emptied his health bar, got really excited....then the second phase started and he got even more aggressive and he roasted me.
Still though, this is the first time I got through Thesius without using a death defiance. The build was cool, I used some abilities I don't normally use with Malphon, that slowed it down a little, but boosted the damage big time so I was one shotting a lot of stuff
I feel like I learned a lot though.
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Post by Mario the black knight on Feb 18, 2022 4:50:22 GMT -5
So after 68 escape attempts, I FINALLY defeated Hades
I had a nice Shield build, with Posiden on the special, with a bonus skill called Razor Shoals that made any skill which had knockback (his skills basically) inflicted a status effect where enemies would take damage as they moved, which allowed me to crank up my damage like crazy. I basically focused building around those two skills and made it through most of the rest of the game pretty easily. I could stack the Rupture on enemies quickly because the shield's special is really fast, and just lured them to chase me to wear them down after a few hits. It was super effective against Hades himself, since he has a tendency to run around a lot, and I was able to fight him out of the range of his weapon, then hit the adds once or twice and let them kill themselves.
After defeating Hades, You walk through Greece, theres a nice sunrise and so on, until finally you reach Persephone, Zagreus' mother. She at first doesn't believe you are real, as she was apparently told he died at birth. They spend some time together, before Zagreus starts to feel weak. Apparently he is bound to the Underworld in ways he didn't expect, and in the end he dies there, with so many questions left unanswered.
The conceit here is that it's a roguelike, basically giving a narrative reason why you can continue doing runs. Thankfully it means there is more story to complete.
I was starting to get a little disheartened honestly. But I finally made it. And the most terrifying thing was the power flickered during the run because of all the wind outside. And the game actually crashed the run before this, but seeing the power the Posiden combo had, I had to try it again. I would NOT be denied tonight.
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Post by Mario the black knight on Feb 24, 2022 4:35:12 GMT -5
UGH, I am on a 3 loss streak against Hades right now, I've fought him 3 different times with 3 different weapons, the bow, spear, and fists, and lost all 3 times
My most recent run was a pretty sweet Bow build where I had some great synergy between Artemis and Aphrodite, where I was dealing huge critical hits with the regular shot, and inflicting Weak and consistent damage with the special attack. I also had their Duo boon, which is where crits deal additional damage to weakened foes. If I had gotten Divine Dash with Athena, this run would have been a winner, but my defense was woefully underserved trying to pump up the damage, and I spent most of the run with very little HP unfortunately, and I was never really able to recover.
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Post by Mario the black knight on Feb 27, 2022 4:29:03 GMT -5
Finally got my revenge
It was another bow build. It was floundering pretty hard, before I got a Daedalus upgrade to the bow that replaced it's slow, but powerful shot with a rapid fire that was quick, but less damaging. But because of the way I had been building around that power shot, my regular shot was already pretty powerful, so speeding it up was unexpectedly exactly what I needed. I figured that upgrade would be terrible, but it ended up beating Hades
The rest of my boons were super unremarkable and mostly irrelevant.
Either way, I beat him again, now I just need to do it with the spear, sword, and fists.
Also, I got to visit Eurydice and Orpheus together, and they sang their song together, and it was SO good
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Post by Mario the black knight on Mar 11, 2022 3:52:04 GMT -5
So I think I just beat Hades with like, the worst build ever.
I started with the sword, the weapon I am good with in every other game, but in this game I am terrible with for some reason, had Ares' Keepsake, which meant I had to get his garbage boons constantly, for being a god of war, his special status effect, which is basically just a shittier version of Death Sentence from Final Fantasy, is just the worst. So I had a bunch of boons from him and Posiden mostly, and there was no synergy to anything.
The only thing I had going for me was that in the very first room I got a Daedalus Hammer which gave me an effect where I gained back HP on every hit with the standard attack, but only had 40% of my HP for the whole run. Luckily I know my way around Vampire builds in games like this, so that worked out. It basically allowed me to mindlessly plow through damage and end almost every room with full HP, and this was probably my first run ever where I didn't use a single death defiance. So statistically it might be my best run ever, with possibly the worst build ever.
That brings me to 5 clears of the game. Now I just need to figure out how to clear the game with what is effectively a gun, without using it.
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Post by Mario the black knight on Mar 17, 2022 3:28:25 GMT -5
So I managed to beat the game while....carrying....the game's "gun"
It's kinda dumb, but it's this secret, "forbidden" weapon you unlock after everything else. Basically these guys made other games that had guns in them, so they decided to make a silly fantasy gun
So I basically just beat it without firing a single shot. I used every form of damage OTHER than the weapon itself, so basically I focused on boons that gave my dash damage, and allowed me to cast spells, and revenge damage.
Basically theres a dash enhancement that lets waves come off you after your dash from Posiden, which knocks enemies away and does damage, and if they hit something it does more damage, so I leaned hard into that, and I had it doing stupid amounts of damage. That, combined with having Artemis' Call, which is like a limit break basically that just lets you shoot a ton of arrows, it was enough to win.
Now I've cleared it with every weapon, it's time to start upgrading the weapons and finishing out some of the sideplots and so on. I am close to the end of the main story, but I think there is more after that
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Post by Mario the black knight on May 2, 2022 17:46:23 GMT -5
I thought I already posted about this
I beat the main story mode of the game, which was really good.
But now theres like, a second, post game story which almost feels like a second story mode which is pretty awesome, which is basically just geared towards finishing out all the completionist stuff. It's a really great way of handling Post game content.
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Post by Mario the black knight on Jun 27, 2022 23:21:14 GMT -5
So I finally reached the Epilogue, finishing out the rest of the story of Hades
Honestly, it has to be one of the best games made in the last decade, maybe longer. It just goes so far above and beyond what you would expect from this sort of game, especially for an indie company
The execution of the story is amazing, something Roguelikes typically aren't known for, the way they handle the mythology, the witty banter between characters, everything, it just has such style. And your playthrough really feels like your own because of all the options that they give you. Like I didn't make friends with Dionysis at all, because he is a false god in my mind, and I didn't romance any of the characters, but they gave you enough wiggle room to still be able to get the final true ending. Theres even a gun in the game as a secret weapon, and I didn't even use it. (I beat the game with it once, not firing a single shot, mostly through clever use of boons, which is a testament to the design of the game)
The mechanics are absolutely top tier, every single weapon feels good (except the default sword forms feel pretty weak, but the final hidden sword aspect more than makes up for it), each style is unique, all the boons really let you find a style of your own, it's just a lot of fun to play
They do a really good job of breaking up the gameplay as well into different modes. From the regular combat, the fishing minigame, running around the House of Hades talking to people, all the different ways they mix up the encounters like Thanatos rooms, Eribus gates, the gameplay never gets old
And in terms of final bosses, Hades himself has to be an all-time great final boss. Up there with the true greats like Gannon, Xemnas, and Metal Gear Rex. Everything about his presentation, the dialog before the fight, the music, his moveset, the phases, it never really stops being an at least somewhat challenging fight, and you are INVESTED in winning because of the story. You WANT to kick his ass just as much as he enjoys kicking yours. It's just so good.
Top tier soundtrack as well. Not even sure what I can say about it, it's just incredible. The credits theme just feels epic and perfect, and they have the muse Eurydice and Orpheus the Bard duet for it, it's even a song in universe, and I love shit like that.
I will say I am not a fan of all of the character designs, the drawn art is hit or miss, and I do think sometimes they go a little overboard with humor in situations that demand seriousness, but at that point I am just nit picking, everything else is gold standard.
I think now it's time to move on to the Summer RPG, and this year I got my hands on FFX HD. The PS4 version lets me use the original soundtrack and not the shitty "remaster" soundtrack that sounds like ass. But it also lets me play the International Edition Sphere Grid, so I think I'm gonna give that a try this time around, see how it compares to the classic Sphere Grid. This version should also have all the additional Superbosses like Penance and the Dark Aeons. We'll see if they are worth the trouble to beat or are just tedious.
My design senses have changed a lot since the last time I played, so we'll see how I feel about the game this time around. I am basing my timing system in my own game on FFX's CTB system, so I am interested in seeing if this gives me new inspiration. I already know my position has changed on some things, like The Sphere Grid is probably the worst ability system in the modern FF games. It's basically a Tech Tree, the same lazy system so many modern games use now to basically avoid having to do any real design work on their games.
I'm interested in seeing how they rebalanced the European grid, to see what is different about the progression of the game.
From what I've seen of the new UIs, they look pretty nice too
I guess we'll see how it is, this time around. I think the last time I played FFX was in 2014 or 2015. So it will be interesting. I think FFX is actually the one I've played the most times. I played it originally when it first came out, then did a second runthrough when Xion wanted us all to play it that one time, then I played it with Pichubro this most recent time. And I put like 200 hours into it the last 2 times I've played it, and that was the standard US edition all those times, no EU content. So this should be something
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Post by Mario the black knight on Jun 28, 2022 1:17:16 GMT -5
Well, the biggest thing I notice right off the bat is I'm pretty sure there are NO audio engineers working at Square Enix. The audio is absolute shit in this game
If you haven't heard, one of the things they did when they released FFX HD was add a new "Arranged" soundtrack, and it's absolutely atrocious. Not a single song sounds good. At all.
But thankfully, in the PS4 release, they allow you to switch back to the good original soundtrack.
Unfortunately, the shitty audio train didn't stop there.
The FMVs are compressed as fuck. So think of how it sounds to listen to music on hold on a phone, or what shitty MP3s sounded like off Limewire in like 2005. This is what they sound like. You can barely tell there are lyrics in the song in the Blitzball FMV, and the crowd sounds are muffled by that garbling sound. It is amateur hour.
Then in Anima's temple once you first go to Spira, the footstep sounds have this really badly done reverb on them, with absolutely a really bad release, basically the reverb isn't gradual at all, and it sounds like complete shit. Also, the sounds interupt each other, meaning one dripping sound happens, then it ends before it's done because another one starts playing. I have no idea how they managed that, but it sounds disgusting with that bad reverb on it.
One cool thing though is the "Professional Mode" Sphere Grid is completely different. It's kinda crazy, it's not just rearranged, but there are new abilities on here I've never heard of, and it doesn't seem like there are locks between the character's grids. Also, a lot of the better abilites are just in random places on the grid, meaning it basically makes it a non-linear system, which makes decisions more important. Kinda interesting.
It seems like the main paths are similar for the most part, but now there are sort of breaking points where you can just diverge onto anyone elses grid whenever you want. Fascinating.
We'll see if that matters.
It's kind of jarring that the regular character models for the main characters, always have high res polygon models, while the other characters don't.... They used to only use the high res models in closeups, not always. You can tell no thought was put into that fact.
....The field music restarts after every fight, rather than picking up where it left off....Seriously, this is a billion dollar company.....
God the atmosphere is still amazing though....
I love having played this game so many times seeing foreshadowing I missed in previous playthroughs, like Luzzu mentions in passing that the Crusaders have been excommunicated from Yevon, without explicitly stating why, with other Crusaders mentioning "The Operation" meaning they were preparing for Operation Mi'ihem well before the Blitzball Tournament
Theres also this thing that Yuna always does that Tidus mentions later in the game, that she does for the first time when leaving Besaid, looking back with this sad, longing look... It means nothing if you don't know why. Lots of early situations with a lot of knowing looks between people and so on, it's so amazing how watching Tidus languish in not knowing changes when you know and he doesn't.
There are plenty of things that happen early in this story that definitely feel like "We need Tidus to be here, so...just fuckin do it." like the random vortex that takes him off Rikku's boat, and him just charging into the Cloister of Trials without any pretext as to why.
I am noticing something that I'm not sure if it was in the original game and now I'm noticing it or if this is an HD remake thing, but there is some jank on stick tilt relativity between jumpcuts on the overworld, the movement relative to stick position jumps pretty abruptly between reference frames. This is a problem I spent months solving, so seeing it in this game is kind of crazy....
So far I feel like the remaster is literally only worth it as a more accessible way to play the Professional Sphere Grid. Everything else is noticeably worse.
Even little stuff, where they took the original pen and ink drawings of the party and digitized them, and they just look cheaper...
If it weren't for being able to switch in the original soundtrack, I wouldn't be playing this. It's a shitty remaster, but I mean, if Square Enix can put this trash out and make money, it gives me hope.
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Post by Mario the black knight on Jun 30, 2022 3:48:16 GMT -5
I just started with the Yuna Sending scene. It's probably one of my favorite FMVs in the game, it's just so visually striking. I kinda realized while watching it that the designer probably built this game around the set pieces like this. A lot of the scenes in the promo material like Yuna on the water, and Tidus and Yuna in the pond, I have a feeling they knew those scenes before they had written the story about how they happened.
Also, I just did a thing....I don't think this was in the original. There was a child sitting in some ruins, I went to talk to her, and the ruins collapsed, I jumped in and saved her, then she ran away.... I don't know if that is new or not...
I went into town, and the lady in the bar let me open a treasure box there for saving her sister. Well how about that.
Ugh.....I LOVE the atmosphere in the woods on Kilika....
And unlike the PS2 version, theres no frame drops
Thinking about the Cloister of Trials, it's really not the best puzzle...
Like theres no connective logic to any of it, You mostly just run around and try random stuff until it works, the default strategy is to just brute force it. The mechanics are so limited and theres no logical reason to do anything other than just try random spheres until stuff opens.
In terms of dialog and pacing and story, FF is untouchable. In terms of puzzle and dungeon mechanics....not so much...
Another thing that drives me crazy about this game is that they give Yuna Esuna as a starting skill, basically invalidating status effects right out of the gate, since you can cure them all basically effortlessly.
Basically all of the status effect items are power crept before you get most of them.
I'm saving before I attempt to get the Jecht Shot. I wanna see if it's possible to win the Blitzball tournament.
Nailed it. First try.
I think the reason so many people just assume Blitzball is hard and bad and always lose the tournament (besides the fact that the default Aurochs have TERRIBLE stats) is the fact that they front loaded the tutorial in such a brutal way. If they had maybe had a scrimmage or practice game before the literal finals, which eased you into the game, maybe people would have had a chance.
Or maybe they wanted the Aurochs to lose on purpose.
Also, I love how the Aurochs without Tidus can somehow beat the Al Bhed Psyches, the by far hardest team in the early game, but with Tidus typically can't beat the Luca Goers, the worst team besides maybe the Guados
I swear, this game sometimes. I never realized they had Lulu use some magical Deus Ex Machina magic to get them back off the Al Bhed boat during round 1 of the tournament..... They basically just needed to get the Al Bhed involved in the story in order to drop the secret about Yuna's uncle, but couldn't find a graceful way...
It's a shame, they handle so many other secrets so much better
Well, I got fucking obliterated first attempt at the Blitzball final, because I forgot I don't have the Jecht Shot in the first half
They really stack this game against you in every way.
I'm gonna probably have to redo the Yuna Rescue... But whatever. I want this win.
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