Tuesday…

…is the first of the month. That means I’ll be starting in on Final Fantasy III. I certainly hope there’s more to talk about than I found with I and II. I’ll be playing the Nintendo DS remake, and I hear it’s gotten a serious overhaul. If that’s the case, I’m hoping a lot was added in the story and character development departments. Even though Final Fantasy II was clearly more story-oriented than than the first game, it was still fairly basic.

Well, stay tuned, if you were ever tuned to begin with.

The tower in Mysidia

No real update on things. I’m still stuck, and honestly just haven’t been trying. I’m just not at all interested in running around and fighting monsters just to fight the last boss. I did, however, want to mention a music track I found particularly enjoyable.

The Emperor Strikes Back

I feel that there’s one major flaw in Final Fantasy II that just prevents me from really liking it. The majority of the game isn’t bad. The story’s basic, but probably not as basic as the first Final Fantasy (though, I’m not sure what the NES version was like; maybe the similarities between the two were greater). The system of raising stats individually, as opposed to an increase at a level up, is good in theory, but probably could have been finer-tuned in practice. Most of the bosses have what I perceive as an astronomical defense value, making them all but impervious to physical attacks. This makes it almost necessary that all characters are magical to some degree, lest they risk being useless in boss battles. But even that isn’t too big a deal. The major flaw, I believe, lies in finishing the game.

The final dungeon, which encompasses both the Jade Passage as well as the Pandaemonium Tower, is around twenty floors long, doesn’t seem to contain any item shops or inns (though there is a magic shop; go figure), and is inhabited by a couple of enemies that suffer from some balance issues. Specifically Hecteye mobs and Death Rider cohorts. Hecteyes cast confuse, sleep, and stone almost exclusively, giving large groups the opportunity to continually halt the party’s action and slowly turn them to stone. Death Riders have moderate HP, but deal heavy physical drain damage, making an ambush with larger groups fatal. And there is, of course, the final boss, The Emperor. With 10,000 HP, the incredible defense stat common among bosses, and his ability to deal heavy physical drain damage makes him one of the most difficult Final Fantasy bosses I’ve had to deal with…and am still trying to deal with.

However, with our different playing styles, Ultramundane and I had very different experiences with Final Fantasy II. Especially with the final dungeon and boss. So perhaps we’ll hear from him soon.

Deus ex machina

Firion, Maria, Guy, and Josef enter the Snow Cave in search of the Goddess’s Bell. They fight their way to the lower levels, only to come across a small colony of giant beavers. They speak nonsense, as far as the party’s human ears can comprehend. The party will receive no help here. Or will they? Suddenly, Guy reveals, in his trademark choppy English: “Guy speak beaver.” And speak beaver he does! And it is good!

Can I honestly suspend my disbelief thus? Can I truly accept that Guy has known how to speak beaver this entire time but never thought to mention it? Am I to believe that he can speak only to beavers? The answer, of course, is a resounding yes, because I was there, I saw it. Guy speak beaver.

It’s more like a pond, really

I finally began playing the other day, but I was continually discouraged. The characters give fairly poor directions. I was told that Fynn lay across the lake near Gatrea. What I finally figured out was the lake, after going the wrong way and dying twice, was more like a three-tile-wide river. It wasn’t something I’d immediately take for a lake.

You see, the monster encounters aren’t set up in the most obvious manner. In other Final Fantasy games, if you could reach an area, you were probably strong enough to be there. Not so in Final Fantasy II. If you don’t follow just the right paths, you end up in battle with monsters that deal hundreds of damage to your tens of HP. Ouch.

XII in XII continues

Yesterday was the first of November, and was therefore the first day of Final Fantasy II. I haven’t started yet, though, because I spent the day catching up on lost sleep after an all-night Halloween party. So, sorry I’m a little late on getting things started.

Final Fantasy II was released in 1988 for the Famicom in Japan, but never saw an English NES release. It wasn’t released in America until 2003 with Final Fantasy Origins for PlayStation. It has since been released on Game Boy Advance and PlayStation Portable as well.

Ultramundane and I both played Final Fantasy on the NES; however, since there was no NES release of Final Fantasy II, we’ll both be playing the Game Boy Advance remake.

Magic lutes play magic tunes

I haven’t posted in awhile, and I apologize for that. I still just don’t have a lot more to say about Final Fantasy. Honestly, I’ve only completed VI through X-2 before starting this project, so those are the ones I’m prepared to talk about. That being the case, I did remember that I wanted to mention some music. 

Holes, Houses, and Chests

As my red mage Juln, my thief Enst, my second thief Flim, and my black belt Koth revisited the hole in the ground, a peculiar discovery was made.  After battling through poisonous living oozes, the walking dead, the incorporeal dead, and vicious wizards, they saw a treasure chest.  Approaching it eagerly, Juln was the one to open it.

Imagine the surprise he felt as an entire house emerged from the chest!  But an adventurer has no time to examine the conceptual difficulties of his environment.  Not with the dead attempting to claim him as their own.  With an irrational belief, Juln made an impossible decision.  If the house fit in the chest, it could also fit in his backpack.  So, unquestioning, he simply threw it in, and in it went.

Surely a man of such strength will not be defeated.

A second look…

Beginning the game a second time, I’m more personally involved in different aspects of it than the first.  Playing through with a standard party was a lot of fun, but it gave me the opportunity to gloss over some of the more significant challenges the game has to offer.  Some of these have entertained me more the second time around, and have even added depth to the game.

For example, noticing trends in random enemy encounters makes me more involved in the type of threats I’m dealing with, and what to do when I run into them.  There’s a growing sense of adventure alongside the opportunity to mix spells and teamwork to wring out an advantage over my foes.  (I don’t mean to sound ridiculous with my language, but hey, I’m nerdy)  I now feel personally involved with ogre bands, wolf packs, and the ever-looming threat of the undead ahead of me.

In addition to the heightened necessity of focus, the game appeals to me more this time as I’m becoming more interested in role-playing ideas, and am considering it in all of its forms.  Really ascribing goals to my characters as characters adds another dimension for me.

With newer inspirations in this fantasy world…

There’s no telling what might happen.

 

Never forget the good and true

I finally finished the game. I had a hell of time getting through the last dungeon, mostly because I wasn’t sure what I needed to do. I had a rod that moved a stone plate in the earth dungeon, and I ran into a stone plate in the final dungeon. My instict was, of course, to use the rod. It didn’t work. So I figured I needed to search the dungeon for another item, but I didn’t find anything, and died a number of times while looking. It took until today for me to just randomly use items to see if any work. Turns out it required the lute, the first key item you receive.

Anyway, the final dungeon has you fight the four fiends again. They’re all pretty much at the level of normal enemies at that point, so whatever. Finally you get to the end and find Garland. He tells you about the time loop and then becomes Chaos. Chaos is by far the weakest final boss I’ve ever fought. It was nice to finally finish the game, but Chaos was definitely a little disappointing. Still, as far as NES RPGs go, I can see how it garnered the attention it did.

Well, I managed to finish, but I’ve still got, like, three weeks left in October.  I didn’t have much to talk about while playing, I’m not sure I’ll have any more to talk about now. What to do, what to do… I guess that’s for me to figure out, and for you to wait and see.