The grind continues!
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| Cropped (and huge)! |
I wanted to update this weekly (every Thursday was the original plan), and unfortunately I didn't get to update it last week (which would have been the week of December 20). I barely played that week, so that's basically why. Hopefully, from here on out (again, I'm writing this on December 23, but it won't be published until January 1 or 2), you people will get weekly updates. Anyway, I have played since my last update finally, so let's get right to it.
DAY 4 (12/11/14. PLAYTIME: 2:28 TO 3:18)
I brought the sand ruby back to Rosa, and she wakes up! Joyous day! She suggests going to Fabul castle, which houses a crystal. The idea is to get there before the Red Wings. However, the way to Fabul is through Mt. Hobs, which is blocked by large bits of ice on the road. What's a dark knight to do? At any rate, Rosa joins the party! Later that night, Edward goes out to play his harp (of course he does), and he's attacked by some dumb Sahagin. With the ghost of his fiancee spurring him on, he whops the ass of that weak enemy. She tells him he needs to help his people against the evils of Golbez. After this, my party made their way to Mt. Hobs, and there we found a monk who was kicking serious ass. He's been ambushed, and is fighting all by his lonesome. After he dispatches the normal enemies, he's attacked by a tough boss. This is when the party decided to jump in and help. After the fight, he (his name is Yang) joins the party, and it's on to Fabul. After the Mt. Hobs section (luckily it's very short), I spent the rest of my time just grinding in the area, to level everyone up a bit.
I don't know if my characters are under leveled, or if Mt. Hobs is really tough, but I had a hell of a time fighting through it. The boss (whom I'll get to momentarily) is the toughest one I've fought so far. This was a pretty good session, capped off with a rough boss (with three distinct phases, to boot). As always, I have bulleted notes:
- Edward seems much stronger than he was before. I don't know if I'm just imagining it or not. I guess seeing Anna's ghost really helped a lot
- There's a lot of character-specific commands that I'm not 100% of their function. Rosa has both an "attack" command, and an "aim" command. Both show her shooting an arrow, but the "aim" one seems to be stronger.
BOSS:
Mom Bomb:
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| I was happy to see these guys (the Firebombs) that I've seen in probably every iteration since I started with VII |
As I said, this is the toughest boss so far. It starts with a normal looking Bomb enemy. Just attack it as normal (Cecil: attack; Yang: attack; Edward: attack; Rydia: Chocobo; Rosa: support). Eventually, it'll explode with the fury of a very pissed off mom. See:
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| I wouldn't get on her bad side |
This scary-looking red cloud is the "true" form of the Mom Bomb. I guess? It will still attack, but just stick to the same strategy as above. Eventually, again, it'll explode (causing big damage to all five characters) once it's taken enough damage. If this is the "true" form, what else can their be?
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| Kids! |
So, Mom Bomb was pregnant? Or she always just had several (same size) regular Bombs stored inside her? And why didn't they just explode with her? All that inconsistency aside, this is the toughest part of the battle. It's now just three Bombs and three Grey Bombs, but their sheer numbers are what is so tough about this battle. I had to utilize basically everyone besides Cecil to act as healers/revivers, because these guys attack so often, it's tough to stay on top of healing everyone. Luckily Cecil can take the regular Bombs out in one hit, if I remember correctly. It's an endurance match, that's for sure. Once you kill all six of these guys, the battle is mercifully over.
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DAY 5 (12/13/14. PLAYTIME: 3:19 TO 3:46)
This one will be nice and short. This was strictly grinding (or levelling, whatever you wanna call it). I ran around the area outside of Fabul castle, fighting, gaining experience and gold. I levelled everyone up a few levels. Nothing else to add. Pretty boring to read about!
BOSS:
None, ya chowdaheads! Didn't you just read that I only grinded! Sheesh.----------------------------------------------------------
DAY 6 (12/22/14. PLAYTIME: 3:47 TO 4:40)
Big stuff went down today. The group (along with reinforcements) tries (and fails) to defend Fabul castle from the attack from the Red Wings. The gang ends up retreating into the crystal room (which seems like a bad idea to begin with). Kain (!!), apparently under the control of Golbez, whoops Cecil's ass good. Golbez makes his first visual appearance in the game. He comes in, grabs the crystal, and kidnaps Rosa.
After this, the group is pretty down. But, they decide to try to steal an airship from Baron, to attempt to rescue Rosa and retrieve all the stolen crystals. They leave on a ship, and halfway through the voyage, it gets attacked by Leviathan. Everyone gets knocked off the ship and separated. Cecil wakes up near a small town, Mysidia. You may remember this as the town that Cecil killed people and helped steal a crystal from during the very beginning of the game. Mysidia is full of black and white mages, and they are none-too-happy to see the guy that just recently pillaged and murdered them. If you talk to them, they will poison you, turn you into a cute little frog:
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| Adorable! |
And turn you into a cuter pig:
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| Eeeee! ADORABLE! |
After all this hilarious hatred, you can talk to the elder of the town. He tells you if you can renounce your dark knight ways, and become a paladin, he will help you. To do this, you must go through the creatively named Mt. Ordeal. The elder does give you two annoying, crappy apprentice mages to take with you: Palom and Porom. They're little kids, basically. I ended up taking the mages to Mt. Ordeal, and who did I find but Tellah? Thank god! He's searching for the Meteor spell, to get revenge on Golbez. He joins back with you. Finally, the last bit of story before I stopped playing was a scene of Golbez sending a very powerful mage named Scarmiglione to Mt. Ordeal to kill Cecil. Overall this was a good day. There was lots of great story-driven elements, which I'm enjoying. I'm still very interested in playing the game, which is the biggest compliment I can afford it. I will say, the fighting on Mt. Ordeal IS an ordeal, because your apprentice mages get killed in two hits. Also, the place is filled with zombies and undead creatures that can only really be hurt with white magic. I HATE that! Anyway, notes:
- I'm really starting to hate getting new party members. They are always so much weaker than Cecil, and anyone else in the party. Cecil was level 18 when I got those two, and they were both level 10. Very annoying
- VERY grateful to have Tellah back. I missed him!
- The town of Mysidia is very odd, and it's pretty funny to see how much EVERYONE HATES YOU, and they love fucking with you
- I'm really liking the story so far. It's got me hooked
- I'll say again, fighting on Mt. Ordeal sucks. I generally just run from the battles, because it's not worth trying to fight through it and having Palom and Porom get killed time after time
BOSS:
Again, none today. I have a feeling I'll be fighting one soon...----------------------------------------------------------
DAY 7 (12/24/14. PLAYTIME: 4:41 TO 4:51)
Firstly, even though my playtime was only ten minutes, I played for close to an hour. Let's get right into the follies of Mt. Ordeal. My adventure on this Christmas eve started, logically enough, right where I left off last time I played. I almost immediately entered into a boss battle with the aforementioned mage Scarmiglione, and a host of zombie creatures. After beating them, ol' Scar reveals his true form. After this second boss fight (both of which will of course be detailed below), I entered the small chamber at the end of Mt. Ordeal. This is where Cecil would become a paladin. Buuuuuut, in order to that, he has to beat his old dark knight self in a battle. I've struggled if I should include this as a boss battle, because it's really not a battle at all. But, I included Mad Hatter from Arkham Origins as a boss battle, and that was also barely a battle, so what the hell, I will!
But why did ten minutes of game time take me about fifty minutes of real time? Well, I had to do the section THREE TIMES! I got quite proficient at killing the first two bosses before the dark knight battle, I'll tell you what. I died twice during the Cecil-vs.-himself battle. There's sort of a trick to it, and I couldn't quite figure it out. You can read my exploits below. Otherwise, after Cecil defeated his dark knight self, he became a full fledged paladin. Also, Tellah conveniently remembers that he has knowledge of basically all the magic spells in the game. Something about that place being special, or some BS like that. It seemed pretty silly. At any rate, Tellah now has probably every white and black magic spell in the game (including the almighty Meteor), but he doesn't have enough MP (Meteor takes 99!). I believe that's all that happened during the playthrough. My thoughts:
- Kind of bummed Tellah has dozens of spells he can't use right now. It takes any excitement out of being surprised at the new spells characters will learn
- Also, I hate battles designed for you not to attack. I'll get into it more down below, but maybe it should be a little clearer about that from the onset
- Scarmiglione's true form is pretty badass-looking. Best looking boss in the game so far.
- Also, if he's supposed to be one of the four strongest mages (or wizards. I don't remember what exactly he is) in the world, why is he so easy to kill? I mean, I have two wimpy little kids with me, for crying out loud!
- Also, I discovered I could use Cura (and I assume any healing/buff spell) on the entire party! Normally if it's used on a singular person, it'll heal 250+ points of health. If you use it on the whole party, it only heals 70-80. It's still very helpful
BOSS:
Scarmiglione and Skullnant zombies:
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| Creeping |
I started this battle by taking out these zombies. They don't seem to attack right away, and even when they do, their attacks seemed pretty weak. I started off with Tellah using Cura to instantly kill one zombie. After that, I had everyone else use hi-potions (also insta-kill) or regular potions and Cures on the zombies. Once the zombies are dead, the wizard himself is pretty easy. He only either uses a normal physical attack (very weak), or he uses thunder (this can cause some problems with Palom and Porom). I had Cecil attack, Palom (the black mage) use Blizzara (for big damage), Porom (the white mage) heal, and I had Tellah use either Blizzard or Cura on the whole party. The wizard falls pretty easily.
Scarmiglione (true form):
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| Badassing |
After you defeat him and his zombie crew, you continue walking along a bridge, until he stops you, and (back) attacks. I find this battle easier than the first one. You don't have to worry about the zombies, he doesn't attack for damage very often, and he's crazy weak to fire (don't use any ice magic though. He absorbs it!). He uses some attack that should effect the whole party, but as far as I know it doesn't do anything. Not anything noticeable, anyway. And he uses this attack quite a bit, so you can really sit back and just whale on him. He will attack normally - which can cause poison - and this hurts a decent amount. But, he doesn't do it often. I had Palom use Fira (which crushed him for anywhere between 800 and 1000 damage each time), Cecil attack, and Tellah and Porom to heal (occasionally Tellah could use Fire). But with this, he can only stand about four Firas before dying. This battle is a piece of cake (I should know, I did it three times!)
Dark Knight:
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| Batman, in all his glory |
This is where I got tripped up three times. I'll just say it right off the bat: you're not supposed to attack this clown. If you attack him, you're in for a long battle. Apparently he can be beaten by normal means, but I didn't have near enough hi-potions for this. My first battle with him lasted awhile. We exchanged blows, and I had to heal constantly. During the battle you get a message that says something like, "paladins know when to sheath their swords" (not verbatim, but close enough). So after I attacked this guy for what seemed like forever, I stopped and let him kill me. Game over.
Okay, so I fought through the two phases of the Scarmiglione battle again, and again I was back fighting my dark self. Again I attacked. I couldn't keep up with his barrage, so I died.
For a THIRD time I fought Scarmiglione and got to this battle again. I'm not gonna lie guys, I had to look it up. I'm annoyed at myself for doing so, and I'm really going to refrain from doing it anymore in the future, but I didn't want to fight through this area a fourth time. I learned you aren't supposed to attack him at all. After two-or-three of his dark attacks, he stops and the battle is over. I know the game hints at this, but that message didn't come up until at least a minute into the battle. So the very first time, regardless, it sets you up for failure. You get into a battle screen, and you wanna fight.
After this battle, Cecil becomes a Paladin, Tellah remembers all his spells, and then I saved it. I must note also that something is up with those apprentice mages. They are hiding something. I'm sure we'll find out soon. Thanks for reading my second week's journey through Final Fantasy IV! Check back next Thursday for another installment
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