Transcript

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hello, and welcome back to the Gaming Backlog Book club reminder. We do go into spoilers eventually here, so if you want to avoid that, start at one of our previous episodes, play along and come back to this one once you’re caught up.

Where did you go first as pilot of the airship? Alex.

[00:00:18] Speaker B: Ooh, as part of the airship, where’d I go first? I.

I can’t. Honestly, I can’t remember exactly where I went first. I think mainly I just kind of. I flew it around for a little bit.

[00:00:28] Speaker A: Just enjoying the thrills of flying it.

[00:00:30] Speaker B: Around and for sure watching your little.

The little, like, airship blip on the map move around just.

And then just landing it. I think I just kind of landed in different spots at first to just level up for a little bit.

[00:00:45] Speaker A: Grind a little bit.

[00:00:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I was just grinding for a bit, so that’s kind of how I just started on the. Was it the Blackjack?

[00:00:54] Speaker A: I believe I saw that mentioned online. I don’t know that it’s actually referenced at any point by anyone not even shooting wiser. Yeah, Cesar, I don’t think has the name of his ship, but. But yeah, I did see online it’s supposedly called the Blackjack. Yeah, I mean, which makes sense. His main attack is using playing cards. I was gonna say machine.

[00:01:17] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s like a casino built on board as well.

[00:01:20] Speaker A: He does, yeah. He has a casino. I was expecting to see something happen on that and nothing really did.

[00:01:24] Speaker B: No.

[00:01:26] Speaker A: Guy knows how to have a good time, though, that’s for sure.

[00:01:29] Speaker B: Yeah, he does.

[00:01:31] Speaker A: I mean, I guess I remember last time, I guess I grabbed a party of the characters I hadn’t been using for the previous hour or two of gameplay to try to cast them up in levels a bit. So I similarly was doing a bit of grinding, but I ended up just landing at Narshe first and, you know, grinded a little bit around there and was just trying to get the other characters going because I was just so focused on one group for so long.

[00:02:03] Speaker B: Yeah, same.

[00:02:05] Speaker A: When you went to Narshe, did you check all the buildings after Bannon told you the plan?

[00:02:13] Speaker B: I believe so, yeah. I usually.

Yeah, I don’t know why I’m like, blanking right now, but, yeah, I’m pretty sure I went through all the buildings.

[00:02:21] Speaker A: I. As. As I mentioned this, it’ll might may or may not ring bells for you, so. And this is the thing that I’ve. Especially after just stumbling upon this, realizing I need to do this everywhere no matter what, because, you know, we’ve already been to Narsh multiple times, maybe that your first thought isn’t, oh, you should go check out everything. Like the shops. Yeah. Because you want to see if they’ve got new weapons or items or whatever. But not every single building, But. So I did just randomly. And did you happen to run into a wolf man?

[00:02:53] Speaker B: Yes. Okay. Yeah. It just like. Yeah, it came.

I did all this. Yep.

[00:02:59] Speaker A: So you ran into a wolfman named Lone Wolf stealing something from a chest, and then when you walk out of the building, he kind of, like, jumps up in surprise, I guess, and.

Which indicates, Right, that you should chase him down. And so it just keeps, you know, multiple scenes keep happening. It takes you all the way through the caves again, back up to the cliff where the esper is, and he has a Moogle hostage.

And once it wakes up, they get into a bit of a scuffle. And both, you know, similar to when we were.

Our party was attacked by the esper, you know, the two of them get scattered to almost fall off on opposite sides of the cliff.

[00:03:38] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:03:39] Speaker A: And then the Lone Wolf says something about not giving you the gold hairpin, which later you realize is the item he stole from that chest and you could recover it by going to him. Did you choose him or the moogle?

[00:03:52] Speaker B: No, I chose the moogle.

[00:03:54] Speaker A: Okay.

Okay. I played 10 when it came out. You need to remind me what you’re talking about.

[00:04:02] Speaker B: I played 10. Was it not that long ago? Well, like now. A few months ago.

[00:04:06] Speaker A: A couple months, yeah.

[00:04:07] Speaker B: Yeah. But they had all the moogles in there, so it’s just like when I saw Moogle again. Like, I see him in this.

[00:04:14] Speaker A: No.

[00:04:14] Speaker B: Yeah, Okay. I was just like. I just go. I was like, oh, I love those little guys.

[00:04:19] Speaker A: Kupo Koopo, you know?

[00:04:20] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:04:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. So then you had the same experience, which is great, because it turns out he’s a potential party member.

And something tells me if you went to go, you know, I guess not save, but save the item from the wolf, you probably might lose out on Mog, the name of this moogle, which is the name of most moogles, I think, in Mainline Final Fantasy. So that was a nice surprise.

[00:04:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. I like Mog, too. I used him for a little bit after.

[00:04:53] Speaker A: And.

Yes. I mean, same. I think that the funniest part of that whole interaction, though, is that you save the Mog.

And of course, the Lone Wolf decides to escape by jumping off the cliff instead of escaping the other way. So, yeah, that’s a choice.

But I’m definitely a fan of Mog, I think.

Yes. I put him into my party immediately. So, you know, because the next step is to go find the sealed gate to the esper world. I brought Terra, since she’s required. Also brought Sabin, who I wanted to catch up with the leveling. And I just still love the fighting game inputs of his blitz attacks. And then, yeah, my two kind of weirdo pseudo blue mages, Gao and Mog.

I’m definitely a fan of Mog’s dance moves.

[00:05:43] Speaker B: Yeah, his dance moves are good. The wind 1. The wind dance was good.

[00:05:48] Speaker A: The wind dance. It’s just so funny to me that they incorporated a mechanic where he’ll. He’s kind of clumsy and so he’ll stumble like a quarter of the time, it seems like. And just not do anything.

[00:06:00] Speaker B: And not do anything. Yeah.

[00:06:02] Speaker A: Which is like a little frustrating in a fight. But then also it’s not that consequential. So it’s just kind of goofy. Mm.

And you know, you get to the sealed gate, right, and the cave on the way there was kind of full of lava. It had these weird bridge traps that instead of insta killing you because you know it’s lava, they just push you to the start of the area and they have.

The caves are full of undead dragon heads. Did you take advantage of the holy waters?

[00:06:38] Speaker B: I did. I tried that once and then there was something else I did too that killed them almost instantly. I know, I can’t remember, but yeah, I did. I did do a holy. Yeah, I think I used the holy water once or twice on them after you had told me about that.

[00:06:54] Speaker A: It’s still a useful move.

[00:06:55] Speaker B: Yeah, it is.

[00:06:58] Speaker A: It’s always exciting also to get like a insta kill or a two hit kill on a. On anything that looks kind of so scary like that.

[00:07:06] Speaker B: Yes, it is. Because they can do some damage, so.

[00:07:09] Speaker A: Oh yeah. Those guys especially do a ton.

[00:07:11] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:07:14] Speaker A: And then, you know, we get to the end of. Or get through the caves, you’re on the bridge. And then we have another Kefka face off. But we’re back to his pixel art being goofy rather than that all out kind of drawn image of him like most of the bosses.

So they keep. I don’t know if they’re alternating, but it definitely seems to be more like a. When it’s a real fight, they use his like, well drawn image. And when it’s more of a story continuation fake fight, they’re using the pixel art.

[00:07:48] Speaker B: They’re using the pixel art. Yeah.

[00:07:49] Speaker A: That’s kind of what I’ve gathered so far. Not sure that it means anything at the end of the day. But it is funny that they’ve alternated between notes for just for him.

Yes.

And then yeah, there are espers on the loose after all this because we open the gate and they are angry.

[00:08:10] Speaker B: They are extremely angry.

[00:08:12] Speaker A: Which it’s understandable when you consider all of the history except for the fact that we didn’t do anything wrong, us personally, but they attacked us and the airship crash lands before we have a chance to really use it all that much. So just like that they sweep it out from you.

[00:08:31] Speaker B: I know, I liked it too.

[00:08:32] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, you get so much enjoyment out of being able to go literally anywhere you want in about five seconds and.

[00:08:39] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:08:40] Speaker A: And it’s gone.

[00:08:42] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:08:45] Speaker A: And you know, continuing on from there, you.

There’s a bit of an unusual kind of sequence of events that happens after you crash land. You get over back to Vector and the Emperor Gestal is devastated by the attacks and supposedly has a change of heart. Calls off the war, imprisons Kefka for poisoning that city dome away at the beginning and he gives you four minutes.

Don’t know why they do it like this, but they give you four minutes to convince as many of his soldiers as possible that they should also be against the war. Now yes, it seems kind of arbitrary, but hey, that’s our mission. So just kind of randomly run around and talk to all the guards.

[00:09:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And then there’s a couple of them that when you talk to them, they attack you instead.

[00:09:37] Speaker A: Oh yeah. They want to fight instead.

[00:09:38] Speaker B: They’re very quite easy fights now at that point.

[00:09:44] Speaker A: But it’s. Yeah, I just remember just. I don’t know, he’s trying to skip over the items and like hoping you get a chance to go find them or open them later, which you do. But a four minute race is not. With fights mixed in is kind of just an interesting choice.

And you know, then you get invited to join a banquet feast and the four aper party. Sit on one side of the table with. What’s the guy’s name? Leo. General Leo.

[00:10:15] Speaker B: General Leo, yeah.

[00:10:18] Speaker A: And Sid, Was he there? That’s a good question. Don’t remember.

[00:10:22] Speaker B: I think he was.

[00:10:25] Speaker A: And it. He basically the. The emperor just asks you a bunch of questions and then lets you ask a bunch of questions which has some good story revealing moments to it but also turned out to have a hidden point system behind it that you don’t find out about until after the thing is done. And yeah, once you’re ready to leave. His. His lackey gives you a bunch of stuff based on how you did.

[00:10:48] Speaker B: On how you did. Yeah, I thought. Yeah.

[00:10:51] Speaker A: And so at that point, I’m just like, no, I don’t think it’s worth it to go and, like, restart the save and try to do it better or faster or something else. But it is, you know, it’s nice of the Emperor that he let Figaro and one other town be free again. But everyone in our party is still suspicious of him, so by default, I am too.

[00:11:09] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Very suspicious of him. He’s. Yeah, it seems quite shady. It just seems shady.

[00:11:17] Speaker A: It is crazy how a handful of pixels and some text can make you understand that sense of shadiness for a character. I think it’s also the way I.

[00:11:26] Speaker B: Read it in my head.

[00:11:28] Speaker A: That is true. Yeah. Do you read everything with a British voice?

[00:11:31] Speaker B: No. I don’t know.

I think sometimes I have voice like, this is gonna make me sound crazy. Like each character to me has a little different voice, obviously, slightly, when I.

[00:11:43] Speaker A: Read it, not fully, but refine those a bit. And next time you’ll have to read a line from all the characters.

[00:11:49] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe I will.

[00:11:54] Speaker A: And. But I. Yeah, okay. So you get the points. You get some items. He frees some towns. Super shaky. Definitely a front for something. But without our airship, we don’t have any options to go over to where we need to be.

So we basically have to take him up on the offer of shuttling us to Crescent island on his Magitek armored transport ship. And, you know, nothing bad happened the last time Terra was in a Magitek armor.

And, you know, you’re riding across on the boat, your party meets together. Locke and Celes have some serious bottled up tension that neither of them wants to talk about at the same time. And Terra asks General Leo if he thinks she can ever be loved. He says, yes, of course.

I’m curious if they were trying to set up a potential romance there, since his response also included that she’ll find it someday, but she said she wanted it now. Right after he walked away, she waited for him to walk away. So, you know, especially right after seeing the selith lock thing, it’s almost like, oh, they’re trying to turn this into a soap opera of some sort.

[00:13:02] Speaker B: It seemed that way, yes.

[00:13:04] Speaker A: Which, I don’t know. I guess we already had a real opera in this thing, so why not a soap opera, too? And then, of course, of course, on top of all that, Shadow was eavesdropping. Like any good Ninja does. And Locke pops up for some comic relief by being seasick and peeking over the side into the ocean.

[00:13:20] Speaker B: I’m not gonna lie. That’s actually.

I will give like, the credit for.

For the artists and the pixel art of that, like, being able to make it so you actually, really, like, know what he’s doing by, like his facial expression and his little motion just through little pixels.

It’s rash. It was fun.

I laughed, I think a little bit out loud at that. I thought it was quite funny.

[00:13:46] Speaker A: Yeah, same here. Yeah, it’s legitimately high skill and a true kind of piece of art. Right. I mean, if you can generate a visible emotion out of. I don’t know how many pixels are in a single character, but good job.

[00:14:02] Speaker B: I know. And this is what. When did this game come out?

[00:14:04] Speaker A: 90, 96. It wasn’t.

[00:14:06] Speaker B: Yeah, somewhere around there. Yeah.

It’s impressive because. Yeah.

[00:14:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, good job, Good job all around it. I know the artists here are killing it and I don’t know if I had mentioned it already, but the backgrounds in the battle scenes are typically really detailed and look great, like, because I think they’re static images anyway, so. But they, They’re. They did a really good job of like providing a high detailed background image and just pixels.

[00:14:39] Speaker B: Yeah, they did.

[00:14:41] Speaker A: And then there’s like the crazy waterfall one and those kinds of other unusual versions too, but just the static backgrounds are sweet.

Anyway, so after Locke finishes vomiting everything, then we get to the island and we go to Tamasa, I believe is the name of the town.

[00:15:03] Speaker B: Thamasa.

I don’t know if it’s the th. As in the. Or.

[00:15:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I think aside from the most obvious ones, we’re just winging it on all these pronunciations, as, you know, most people do with anything fantasy related. But. So you get to Thamassa, Tamasa, and everyone is lying about not knowing anything about magic or espers and it just being a plain boring town. But then once Relm ends up in a flaming house, they reveal that they can all control magic.

And then for whatever reason, the Eye of Sauron decided to come down from his tower and just terrorize a random little village. And as he’s the main boss in that house, the burning house. But that’s what. That’s what came to mind when I saw that. I don’t know about you, the little iris.

[00:15:48] Speaker B: Oh, why am I.

[00:15:50] Speaker A: The fireball boss thing, whatever it was called.

[00:15:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree. Yes, it does. Yes, it does look like the Islam. Yeah.

[00:16:03] Speaker A: But always watching. Just always watching. Always attacking little Kids, this thing.

[00:16:09] Speaker B: Saddleman and everybody else.

[00:16:11] Speaker A: And despite the fact that he deals some solid fire damage, I felt he was pretty easy to take out.

I don’t know who you had in your party at that point, which actually probably makes a difference, but Strego was in the party. Right. Who’s the kind of old man.

[00:16:26] Speaker B: I don’t think you could pick your party. I think this is three that you had to have.

[00:16:30] Speaker A: All right. I think it’s.

[00:16:33] Speaker B: Terra Lock and Strago.

[00:16:35] Speaker A: Nope. You must be right. Yep. Because that’s exactly who I had with me.

[00:16:39] Speaker B: Yeah. I think it’s a locked. I think it’s locked on those three.

[00:16:44] Speaker A: So it was. I mean, it was pretty easy. I don’t know if you used. I guess Drago’s attack. Special attacks are called Lores. So he had an Aqua Breath, which is a little clear, not subtle at all. Hint of what you should use against a fireball.

[00:16:58] Speaker B: It destroyed all of the fireballs. And then the.

[00:17:03] Speaker A: Between. Between the Aqua Breath Lore and just using the Blizzard Magic Attack. Yeah, kind of. Oh, I have.

[00:17:10] Speaker B: So with Terra, I have a. I have Blizzara.

[00:17:14] Speaker A: Yep.

I had another one on some other character. No one.

[00:17:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I have. I have a few. I have Bizarre. I have the Fira. The Fira one. So, like, I use those for more.

[00:17:26] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think that the way that you learn new magic in this.

This, I guess, side note here is kind of confusing. Not confusing because it seems like you equip an esper and you learn magic by going through fights while having the Esper equipped. So everyone can learn every magic.

But it seems different from some of the other final fantasies I’ve played where you can unlock Blizzaga and Firaga, which I think are the third tier.

[00:17:53] Speaker B: Those are the third high.

[00:17:54] Speaker A: But they’re not in the list of the espers. So I don’t. Maybe we just need to find another esper that has that third tier at some point. But I’m just surprised that it’s not just like a stat. Like Shiva just doesn’t give you Blizzard Bizarre.

[00:18:06] Speaker B: Blizzaga.

[00:18:07] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess we’ll find out. I’m assuming because there’s already the aura level there. There’s going to be an AA level.

[00:18:15] Speaker B: I would assume so. Yeah. I just got them through. I actually didn’t even think about. They were connected to the ESPers. I just got it from.

I was just.

[00:18:22] Speaker A: Just.

[00:18:23] Speaker B: I felt like grinding after some battles. I would say, like at the end, Auto unlocks it.

[00:18:28] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:18:28] Speaker B: Like Terra learned Fira Blah, blah. Like Locke learned Blizzard and just say stuff. Yeah.

[00:18:37] Speaker A: Yeah. I don’t know. Maybe it is still connected to the esper and he just had the right esper on.

[00:18:41] Speaker B: Maybe.

Yeah, it might be.

[00:18:44] Speaker A: But yeah, I mean, it’s easy to take out some fireballs with some water and ice attacks.

[00:18:48] Speaker B: Water and ice, yeah, it was much easier.

[00:18:51] Speaker A: I also. It was interesting in this particular level too. And I guess the only other place I remember it happening is the.

That like the Defending Narsh War battle where you actually see the enemies on screen and it’s not just a random pop out because that whole house was full of fireballs.

[00:19:12] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s whole. Yeah.

[00:19:14] Speaker A: Which is very much how it worked in Chrono Trigger. And I don’t recall when that came out originally, but yeah, interesting that it was used kind of sparingly here, but for very specific moments.

[00:19:25] Speaker B: Mm.

[00:19:26] Speaker A: You know, meanwhile, you’re in this whole fight and Shadow’s dog Interceptor, which is a great name, still took a liking to Relm and helps you find her in the blazing house.

Gotta love a dog companion. I just wish we could bring him more often.

[00:19:44] Speaker B: I do too. He’s actually pretty powerful too, when he attacks.

[00:19:47] Speaker A: He is.

[00:19:49] Speaker B: Yeah. When Shadow sends him out, he’s strong.

[00:19:53] Speaker A: And Shadow ends up saving everyone as well. So, hey, he’s a pretty convenient ninja to have around.

He is in the Esper caves. As Strago explains, the Triad does a bit of a lore dump. You know, the Triad created magic in the world and created the ESPers before just being getting over all the fighting and making themselves into statues, which is weird. Don’t have any better way to describe that. As he’s doing that and you’re in this cave, Ultros pops back in as what has to be one of the best and maybe the only one that I can think of.

One of the best recurring comic relief boss fights ever.

[00:20:36] Speaker B: Yes. It’s so weird because you’re reading it and it’s reading comically and funny. And then I’m like looking at him and I’m like, this thing is terrifying with this giant ass teeth. And it’s just so weird.

[00:20:51] Speaker A: It’s like.

I don’t know if uncanny is the right word for it. I mean, and it’s not so creepy to be like Cthulhu style.

[00:20:59] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:21:00] Speaker A: But it’s just like. Honestly, it’s like. It’s like what I would expect if.

If it turned into an octopus and then decided to crack some jokes at a stand up comedy show.

[00:21:15] Speaker B: I agree.

[00:21:16] Speaker A: Instead of terrorizing You. It’s a really weird design.

[00:21:18] Speaker B: It is.

[00:21:22] Speaker A: But he’s just such a good recurring comic relief boss that doesn’t really hurt all that much. And better yet, we got him twice in quick succession this week.

[00:21:34] Speaker B: Yeah, we did, but.

[00:21:36] Speaker A: So, you know, basically halfway through that fight, Relm pops in to join our party.

After, it was very strongly hinted, considering she’s being following us around throughout the entire cave.

Her sketch ability is interesting because it basically just copies. It’s like. It’s like ditto from Pokemon. It just copies the enemy’s attacks and usage on them, from what I can gather. But I didn’t find it all that great. So far, it one hit killed Ultros, but after that, it’s pretty puny.

[00:22:09] Speaker B: I haven’t. I’m not gonna lie. After this battle, I haven’t even thrown her in a party.

[00:22:14] Speaker A: Me neither. Me neither. You know, seems weak overall. I mean, maybe there’s some use for her eventually, but so far, haven’t had much, much need to.

[00:22:25] Speaker B: No.

[00:22:28] Speaker A: But yeah, you know, knock out Ultros and then surprise, surprise, we get back to town and Gestal was lying to our faces the whole time.

[00:22:35] Speaker B: Yep. Knew he was shady.

[00:22:37] Speaker A: On top of that, they kill Leo.

[00:22:40] Speaker B: Yeah, that was Kefka. Kefka is for being a little pixel animated. Jester is like one of the most evil characters ever. Dude just.

[00:22:50] Speaker A: Yeah, just thrives. Everybody thrives on chaos and hatred, mostly for no reason.

[00:22:59] Speaker B: I know.

[00:22:59] Speaker A: It’s like he’s just a douche.

[00:23:03] Speaker B: He really is.

[00:23:05] Speaker A: Yeah. They kill Leo and you know, it sucks too, because for a second right there, when he was just crushing enemies, I thought Leo was going to join our party.

That would have been nice because he’s super strong.

[00:23:17] Speaker B: Yeah, he was like level 42.

[00:23:19] Speaker A: It might have been a little overpowered, but I would have taken it. Why not?

It would be good in the fight against Kefka. But I guess at the same time, maybe not, because he got quickly destroyed by him.

And. Okay, so the. The.

You get back onto the airship and the Air Force. I think the enemy is called the Air Force.

It’s like this weird, creepy mutated jet thing.

[00:23:49] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.

[00:23:50] Speaker A: Do you remember this?

[00:23:51] Speaker B: Okay, you mean.

[00:23:53] Speaker A: So. So, okay, so first you fight. You know, that seemed to make more sense to me. Right? You’re fighting against a jet while you’re on a ship.

[00:24:00] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:24:01] Speaker A: Cool. That was right after the fight where Ultros pops back in and he has this weird deformed friend of his along for the rest. Yeah.

[00:24:09] Speaker B: First you fight Ultros. And what was his friend’s name? It is. I hold. I actually have it here in front of me.

It is Typhoon Ultros and Typhoon.

[00:24:19] Speaker A: Yeah. I couldn’t quite make out what Typhoon was supposed to be.

[00:24:21] Speaker B: But Typhoon is resistant to fire. He heals. So his name’s Typhoon. But yet if you hit him with a fire attack, he gains health.

[00:24:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Odd choice there.

[00:24:34] Speaker B: Yeah. You had to like swap it up.

[00:24:38] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:24:38] Speaker B: Wait, am I having that right or is he always Ultras the one to fire? No, pretty sure it’s him.

[00:24:44] Speaker A: I think you’re right. I don’t quite remember.

It’s just weird to see, you know, the. It Octopus and whatever the hell type. I don’t know what just floating in the air.

[00:24:57] Speaker B: Yeah, he’s. He’s even more horrifying than Ultras.

[00:25:01] Speaker A: And then Air Force pops in right afterwards.

[00:25:04] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:25:05] Speaker A: And it still. It was a really weird kind of abstract portrayal of a jet. But you know, he wasn’t too tough.

[00:25:13] Speaker B: I guess it took me a couple tries. It annoyed me a little bit. But I more of because like obviously I’d had a little bit of damage done to me. So you’re like trying to heal up on a couple turns.

[00:25:25] Speaker A: And also attacking a series of multiple boss fights in a row is kind of not ideal.

[00:25:31] Speaker B: And then like he can go sometimes like at least two times in a row because it’s like each arm and then. Yeah, sometimes it’s what? So I died a couple times. I lost a couple times to him.

And then I realized more of. I need to. I started off by just doing high dense attacks with. I think I had Gao in my party there a Gal, Tara and maybe Edgar. I don’t know. I don’t know. If you had to have Lock. I can’t. Oh no. Maybe you had to have Terror.

It was Terror, Lock and Gal.

But I was just aimed specifically for the arms to start.

Took those two off and then was able to sort of go for the main body.

[00:26:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I typically just go for.

Especially when I’m using magic. I’ll just go for the multi target ones that.

[00:26:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I was doing that with the magic. If I have for Terra, I have her. She has like a lightning sword that does multiple. It could hit and then a lightning strike can come down and do even more damage.

So sometimes I do the physical with her on that and the ga. But then with Gao, I use cloud.

[00:26:45] Speaker A: And that targeting attack. Yeah, yeah.

[00:26:47] Speaker B: It does the whatever light like Tara or whatever.

Yeah. And it does. It does. It can do a lot of damage. That’s actually how I beat it. I think I lost.

If it is lock, I think you have to have Terror unlock lock. I think was out. Terror was almost dead.

And then Gal was about a quarter health left on this for me, and he was able to just kid off a last, whatever, lightning strike and kill it. And I was like, oh, thank God.

[00:27:15] Speaker A: And then you see how. See how quickly you can go to the menu and heal up.

[00:27:19] Speaker B: Yeah, basically.

[00:27:21] Speaker A: Yep. So heal up and then. And boy, are we lucky we have access to an airship, huh? Because at this point, the ground on the earth splits and people start falling into the. Like straight out of a bad Hollywood natural disaster movie about earthquakes.

And for whatever reason, we end up on the floating continent.

And, you know, I guess I’ll preface this by saying in this very specific context of where we are, the floating continent is very lame for the world itself, but it provides us, the player, with a very nice view of the world below.

[00:27:55] Speaker B: Yes, it does.

[00:27:57] Speaker A: And the airship is. I don’t know if you noticed this, but as you were wandering, as you’re wandering around the floating continent, you can actually see at one point the airship just kind of hovering below the continent.

[00:28:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I jump back on. You can jump back on it.

[00:28:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:28:14] Speaker B: I jumped back on it and then I realized that when you come back off of it, it puts you right back into the start.

[00:28:18] Speaker A: Yep.

[00:28:19] Speaker B: Yeah, that was so.

[00:28:19] Speaker A: I only did that once. I mean, I guess the airship couldn’t pop back into the hole that you jumped through.

Either way, you know, when you first land on the floating continent, you find out that of course, on top of betraying Leo, they betrayed Shadow too.

[00:28:33] Speaker B: Yes, they did.

[00:28:34] Speaker A: Granted, he’s a hired mercenary assassin, so even less loyalty to him than their, like, lead general, but it’s still rude and nice to know at least about Shadow’s character that he still asks first about his dog before anything else.

What an upstanding assassin. Never heard those two words in the same sentence.

And yeah, I mean, you work your way through, there’s a handful of enemies and you get to what kind of looks like a rat on the Overworld, but is not. It’s Ultima weapon.

[00:29:07] Speaker B: Ultima weapon.

[00:29:08] Speaker A: And Ultima Weapon kind of looks like those lion BTs Death Stranding.

[00:29:15] Speaker B: That’s a good point.

[00:29:16] Speaker A: That’s the vibe that he gave to me.

[00:29:18] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I can see that. Yeah.

[00:29:22] Speaker A: And boy, does he take a beating before going down.

[00:29:27] Speaker B: Yeah, he does. He. Yeah.

I’ll be talking about how you fought him.

[00:29:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I Mean, I’ll just. I’ll take a moment here to sing the praises of the Reflect Ring relic.

[00:29:38] Speaker B: Mm.

[00:29:39] Speaker A: Those things, kind of just in general saved me constantly, I think, in that fight, I had him equipped on every person in my party.

[00:29:48] Speaker B: Oh, Lucky.

[00:29:50] Speaker A: And I. I typically will unequip them from people I’m taking out of my party when I’m changing parties out and put them onto the new people. I, I. I guess just about the Reflect Ring, I don’t love that when you use magic on yourself, it ends up bouncing. I mean, it gets a bounce back to whoever you’re using it on or using it from.

But anyway, it’s very useful as a defense against magic users, so I’m a huge fan of those things. And then I used a bit of Terra’s Trance attack, and I think it was something I just kind of experimented, and I found one called rasp, which looks like it kind of drains MP from the enemy. And mostly just that ended up killing Ultima. Weapon.

[00:30:37] Speaker B: Yeah. So you. I remember you told me, you told me about this because I had text you saying, like, oh, I fought him a couple times, and I hadn’t got through them yet. I was gonna keep trying. I knew about the Reflect Ring. I had a Reflect Ring on Terra, but I didn’t realize I had a second one in my inventory. And I put it on. I had Strago in my party, I think. Who did you have? I had Terra.

Terra, Strago, Shadow.

And I want to say.

Yeah, it must have been Gao.

Yeah, I think those are the four I had.

[00:31:13] Speaker A: No, I had.

I had Terra, Lock, Gau. And I want to say, Mog, you didn’t have Shadow.

[00:31:23] Speaker B: You must have had Shadow. You had to have Shadow. Shadow was on the.

[00:31:26] Speaker A: You have to have Shadow.

[00:31:26] Speaker B: You have to have Shadow. Shadow was on the island. You pick him up.

[00:31:30] Speaker A: Oh, you’re right. I did have Shadow. Maybe it was Gau and Shadow, but I had lock. I used LOCK to steal all kinds of stuff.

[00:31:37] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:31:39] Speaker A: And I guess for some reason, I ended up giving him the right esper combo, that he picked up some strong magic. So he’s actually not useless anymore as a fighter.

[00:31:47] Speaker B: Oh, good.

[00:31:52] Speaker A: But, yeah, yeah, that was who I was using. And it seemed pretty effective, I guess by some degree of luck.

[00:32:00] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:32:03] Speaker A: But I’m a big fan of Trance Terrorist. Trance is solid.

[00:32:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And you’re. Yeah, as I was gonna say, you told me about Rasp. I didn’t have Rasp with her. I don’t even know how you get it.

[00:32:12] Speaker A: Yeah, Rasp is by equipping some esper. I don’t remember which esper it is, but I’ve got a bunch of espers.

[00:32:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I have a few of them. I have quite a few.

[00:32:21] Speaker A: But did you. Did you buy. I’m just thinking about the ones that are harder to. That aren’t like an automatic story related as per pickup. Did you get the ones at the auction?

[00:32:32] Speaker B: No, I did not do that.

[00:32:34] Speaker A: They were super expensive. It was like ten thousand and twenty thousand, I think. But I had enough cash for all the grinding that I do.

So I was like, well, I don’t know if I’m ever going to see these again. So I picked up two from there. I don’t know if maybe one of those gave me rasp. I don’t remember where it came from, but that thing was useful.

[00:32:53] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I bet. But yeah, I ended up putting one reflect ring on Terra. Then I didn’t realize I had a second one. So after I had died a couple times I went back and like looked and made some changes and I put a second reflect ring on Strago and then I changed a couple other little. Little bits of the. Not heirlooms. What are they called?

[00:33:18] Speaker A: Relics.

[00:33:19] Speaker B: Relics. Thank you. I can’t think of the word. I changed. I took off. Forgot what? I took off. I took off something off Shadow that gave him haste, but I changed it to something else that either gave him a little more defense or gave him.

I think it was something that maybe reflects.

Not. Not reflects, but a counter attack. Yeah, sort of counter attack type thing. So I did that. But then with as you said, with terror, I did Trance. Then I had Pharah, which destroyed. And then with Gal, I used. Oh, with Gal I used Bomb.

[00:33:54] Speaker A: Oh yeah, Bomb.

[00:33:55] Speaker B: So he did Blaze and it was doing like 2000 damage every time. It was destroying with Gal. Because I have gal at like 25, 26. Yeah, he was.

[00:34:08] Speaker A: I think. I think Giles might not.

On top of being the strongest character already, I think he’s the highest level.

[00:34:14] Speaker B: For me probably is from. I think him and Terra might be tied for me.

[00:34:19] Speaker A: Bomb and Stray Cat and what was it? Templar Knight might be my best ones.

[00:34:24] Speaker B: I still don’t have stray cat. And yet I fought stray cats. But it won’t let me leap.

[00:34:30] Speaker A: Oh, but I think you can only.

[00:34:32] Speaker B: Can you only leap in the veld?

[00:34:33] Speaker A: You can only leap in the veld.

[00:34:34] Speaker B: Maybe that’s why.

[00:34:35] Speaker A: Okay, that’s why.

[00:34:38] Speaker B: But I have like I have, I don’t know, probably close to 20 different attacks with him. Though.

[00:34:43] Speaker A: So like, I found the list is hard to. Hard to stiff through.

[00:34:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Cloud that does the lightning strikes is really good. Then Bomb for the Blaze and then Hornets Hornet. Something does really well. I think it’s called Hornet.

[00:34:57] Speaker A: Oh, you mentioned that last time. Yeah, I don’t think I tried that one.

[00:34:59] Speaker B: There’s a couple.

[00:35:00] Speaker A: Knight does something that I think was electric Attack.

[00:35:04] Speaker B: Yeah, solid too. And then with Strago, I know he had Aquabreath, so I used Aqua Breath a couple times.

But then also he has stone which can do a good amount of damage. So use that. And then there was a lot of times with the Reflect where Ultima Weapon was trying to hit me and it just reflected off of me and went right back to him. And actually it happened a lot more than I thought it would. Like Reflect.

[00:35:29] Speaker A: He didn’t learn himself.

[00:35:30] Speaker B: I would say it gave me about a 75. Like 75% of the time it reflected instead of me taking damage. And I. So I got.

I’ll say I probably got lucky in that. Like it’s just luck of the draw that it just decided the game decided it’s going to Reflect instead of go through.

[00:35:47] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:35:48] Speaker B: So yeah, I took him out and I don’t even know. We were probably turn 7 or 8. Maybe he was already. Already dead it. And he has like 24,000 health. Yeah. He went down so fast.

[00:36:02] Speaker A: He figured out the right combo.

[00:36:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I did.

[00:36:05] Speaker A: So I will say I’ve settled into a rhythm of basically seeing what a boss is all about. And if I can’t just brute force my way through and tank through their damage to beat them or luck out with my default loadout, I just really take note of what status effects they inflict and the resistances that they have.

And then if I die, I’ll swap out my relic loadout to counter whatever the hell it is and then usually breeze through the next time around. So it’s like most of these bosses have a very specific, specific combo of things that do extra damage. Like some normal other things can work, but there’s things that like just destroy them. And it’s kind of all about finding out what it is. I guess that’s kind of the name of the game in a jrpg.

[00:36:49] Speaker B: But yeah, definitely.

[00:36:51] Speaker A: It’s. This is one of the ones that invented that playbook, so.

[00:36:55] Speaker B: Oh yeah, for sure.

[00:36:59] Speaker A: But okay, so you know, we’ve knocked off Ultima Weapon. Now did you pick up the Ultima Sword?

[00:37:06] Speaker B: So I already had an Ultima Sword.

[00:37:07] Speaker A: Yeah, that’s what I Mean, yeah, no, I. Yeah, I’m not. It wasn’t from gear, but it was just like, you picked up the Ultima Sword or Ultima Weapon previously, which was kind of. It’s like, oh, that’s a cool name. And then you come and fight Ultima Weapon.

[00:37:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn’t have.

[00:37:23] Speaker A: You could theoretically fight Ultima Weapon with Ultima Weapon.

[00:37:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn’t have, though. What was it? Someone has it for me. I think it might be Edgar. It might be Carrie, but I didn’t have a member of my team, so either Edgar or Cyan, but I think it’s Edgar.

[00:37:37] Speaker A: And. Yeah, like, literally on the platform, right past Ultima Weapon, we just walk up some steps. And then Kafka gets the power of the warring triad by pushing some statues around.

[00:37:47] Speaker B: Yep.

[00:37:48] Speaker A: And he decides to kill Gestal.

[00:37:51] Speaker B: I know, dude, this again, again, just.

[00:37:53] Speaker A: Double crossing left and right, even though he was part of the plan. But no, he just had his own plan the whole time.

No surprise. So we know at this point, right, he’s killed Gestalt, he’s moving these statues around and flashing screens and all that. We know at this point things are about to take a turn for the worse.

But it doesn’t really tell you what. And then we get flung away. Shadow holds back Kefka by kind of cramming him in with. More, like surrounding him with statues.

Tobias, time to escape. And we go and fight some weird magic lady before jumping to the airship.

[00:38:31] Speaker B: Mm.

[00:38:33] Speaker A: Did anything notable happen for you at this point?

[00:38:38] Speaker B: Well, no. I’ll just say, though, for the magic lady, she was kind of pain. I think I died once or twice to her because she was reflecting everything I was throwing at her, like, everything. And then the time I beat her, I don’t. I still don’t even know how this happened or how I beat her. Because she puts doom on you, like, to start, and all of a sudden she was doing doom or she was doing something. And it said on my screen, like, roulette.

And it was picking who the hell it was going to, like, do it on. And then it picked her.

[00:39:11] Speaker A: And then she instantly died.

[00:39:13] Speaker B: Yeah, Just doomed herself, I think. And instantly died. And I was like, oh, thank God, I’m done. And I. And this is where I happy. I had the pixel. I instantly hit quick save.

[00:39:25] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah.

[00:39:26] Speaker B: I was like, okay. And then I moved on.

[00:39:28] Speaker A: So I’ll say, if it weren’t for the fact that that did not happen to me, I would say that sounds like a scripted moment.

And it would have been a pretty cool scripted moment, to be honest.

Like, she kills off three of your party members and then dooms herself. But. But no. Okay.

[00:39:44] Speaker B: Wow.

[00:39:44] Speaker A: No, I just. I mostly just use physical attacks and a shitload of healing items.

[00:39:48] Speaker B: Okay, yeah, but.

[00:39:52] Speaker A: But, yeah, so.

So you get past her, and then you get ready to jump. And I was like, wait a minute, did I forget anything?

And then go to jump off again. And instead of what was the no option, it said, yes, jump to the airship, or no, wait for Shadow.

[00:40:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I got that. Yeah, I hit wait.

[00:40:16] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:40:16] Speaker B: I waited.

[00:40:17] Speaker A: I feel like that’s important because he might have just died on the floating continent if not.

[00:40:23] Speaker B: No, I waited.

And.

[00:40:25] Speaker A: And you just. You literally just wait.

[00:40:28] Speaker B: Just wait. I just waited. Yeah. I think it’s like waiting until I don’t even know how many seconds are left, and then Shadow just shows up automatically.

[00:40:34] Speaker A: Fortunately, they give you a counter on the screen, because otherwise, if you’re just waiting aimlessly, then I think it would have been kind of miserable, and I probably would have given up and bailed.

[00:40:44] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:40:45] Speaker A: But. Okay, so hopefully we, you know, come across Shadow again, but basically, you know, you jump onto the airship and then the screen goes black. And a whole lot of stuff happens off screen, apparently, after we reach the airship, because we just get this ominous message on the dark screen.

Says, on that day, the world was changed forever.

[00:41:06] Speaker B: Yep.

[00:41:06] Speaker A: And that made me think that’s the type of moment where a more modern game could totally incorporate a twist for the sake of a twist, like so many TV shows and movies seem to do these days. Like, it could have sprung us with the title screen indicating that we just played. What we just played was only the prologue.

Imagine that.

[00:41:27] Speaker B: That would be nuts.

[00:41:29] Speaker A: Or even more intense. It could have had a Star wars intro rolling bit of text explaining how the world changed for the worse, and then just said the end and got into the actual game credits. That would have been dark.

I don’t know if that’s darker than what actually is happening, though, because tangent aside, we’re now in the world of ruin, apparently, where the world was torn apart. Thanks a lot, Kefka.

[00:41:57] Speaker B: Yep. Thank you, Kefka.

[00:41:59] Speaker A: And were you as shocked as I was to find out that Celes has been knocked out for a full year?

[00:42:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I was.

[00:42:07] Speaker A: That sounds to me like a coma, not being asleep and recovering.

[00:42:11] Speaker B: No, she’s definitely.

[00:42:13] Speaker A: They didn’t phrase it very well. Yeah, that just might be a translation thing, but you don’t sleep for a year. You’re in a Coma for a year.

She’s also lucky that, yeah, she happened to end up on the same island as Sid, who’s been taking care of her the whole time. And then.

[00:42:29] Speaker B: And then he let her in the bed instead of just burying her after however many months.

[00:42:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Not wishing. Yeah, the one bed in the building.

And even more so, he happens to be her grandpa.

[00:42:40] Speaker B: Her grandpa was.

[00:42:43] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, to me, he looked like a guy with a mustache, not a, you know, 80 year old.

[00:42:48] Speaker B: He didn’t look that old.

He does not look that old.

[00:42:52] Speaker A: This is like, I suppose, where modern graphics would help us realize what the pixel art couldn’t.

[00:42:57] Speaker B: Yeah. But then, like, when you hit pause or when you’re in, like, your. What’s it been? You can see, like, Strago. Is it Strago? Strago looks like old.

[00:43:03] Speaker A: Strago does look old.

[00:43:04] Speaker B: You have a point. It looks like he’s almost in his 90s. He looks like I.

[00:43:08] Speaker A: And I do realize, you know, Sid came from the Asperg Research facility, and he’s a scientist with a hazmat suit on and whatnot. But I. Ever since the first one, when I saw him, up until now, I always just thought he was wearing, like, this weird chicken suit.

[00:43:25] Speaker B: I could see that.

[00:43:26] Speaker A: Yeah, because it’s just all yellow with the red and. I don’t know, it’s an odd choice, but. Yeah. Okay, you want. Sid just says, oh, like, I’m actually feeling kind of tired or whatever.

[00:43:37] Speaker B: If we find out who wasn’t feeling well.

[00:43:39] Speaker A: Yeah, he explains. Okay, we’re. We’re stuck on a small island, and the rest of the people on our island kill all. All of them kill themselves by jumping off the cliffs.

But Sid’s not feeling great, so maybe he’s going to be the first one to not jump off the cliff to die. And our next mission is to catch some fish to give Sid some food. I caught the fish, but didn’t bring it to him. And at that point, Right, like this was the point where we were meant to save and quit, but had to leave the map with the house on it to the Overworld to save and quit. Because you can’t save within the towns. At least in the version that I’m in. And yeah, the preview of what’s next is not exactly pleasant. The ocean is red.

In the Overworld, everything is barren and earth colored with hardly any vegetation or green.

[00:44:28] Speaker B: Okay, I haven’t seen anybody I saved inside the house. After talking to Sid, I just saved and stopped inside the house. So I haven’t even gone out and got a fish or anything.

[00:44:37] Speaker A: Good for you. I only left to save. And I thought where I was going was actually to go to the Overworld to save, but it was the beach, so I just grabbed the fish because they were right there.

[00:44:47] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:44:48] Speaker A: And then popped out to the Overworld and Yep, it’s. It’s not looking very nice out there. But even so, I can’t wait to see what’s going on.

[00:44:58] Speaker B: Yeah, it’ll be. Yeah, it’ll be.

I don’t know. I feel like.

Well, Kef good now is gonna be.

I feel like he’s gonna be even scarier, creepier looking.

I’m curious on if his pixel. Cause like, he’s all red and blue, like the color of like, Jester’s. If he’s gonna be like darker colors, like purple, because it’s a world of ruin and a darker.

I think it’d be cool if it changes pixel colors.

[00:45:24] Speaker A: I’d be curious to see if he’s actually just like a demon in disguise.

[00:45:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I feel like that’s probably a good take. He probably is.

[00:45:35] Speaker A: And that’s all folks for this week.

[00:45:37] Speaker B: Yes, it is.

[00:45:39] Speaker A: So for next time, to keep this as vague as humanly possible. Yet again, thanks to our spoiler free source of info that has helped us break this game into reasonable chunks, our goal is to play until you acquire a new airship.

So once you find a new airship, save and quit and hang on for next time.

[00:45:57] Speaker B: Yeah, we’re looking forward to playing the next part. And thank you all for continuing along with us on Final Fantasy 6, and hope you’re enjoying it as well. And maybe having an easier time than myself against Ultima and some other bosses. Or also just like us finding Kefka just as great, creepy and horrifying as he is.

[00:46:20] Speaker A: Yeah, give us your hot take on Kefka.

[00:46:23] Speaker B: Dude’s a psychopath. He’s one of the biggest psychopaths I’ve actually seen in a video game. And it’s weird because it’s like a pixel character.

[00:46:31] Speaker A: Right? But in fact, correction, if you have a hot take about Kefka, then you are also a psychopath.

[00:46:39] Speaker B: So.

[00:46:40] Speaker A: But yeah, that’s the only opinion anyone should have about him. I know.

Yeah. Maybe at the end of this thing, we should try to see if anyone, any major game villain, can even come close.

Yeah.

[00:46:53] Speaker B: There’s a part of me I was like, while I’ve been playing this, trying to think is. I was like, this guy has done a lot, killed a lot of people.

[00:47:02] Speaker A: Already, and we’re only getting started.

[00:47:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And has no.

Doesn’t show any remorse.

[00:47:08] Speaker A: He literally just destroyed the world. And we’ll, yeah, we’ll see what, what else he can come up with.

He’s creative, I’ll give him that.

[00:47:16] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, definitely.

But yes, thank you everybody for following along with us. And yeah, looking forward to getting through to this next part here, to where we acquire another airship. And we will talk to you about it in the next episode. So thank you for listening and have a good.

If you want to follow along and discuss our playthrough of native games on the Gaming Backlog Book Club Podcast, please give us a follow on your podcast platform of choice, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Amazon Music or Pocketcasts, as well as our Discord and Instagram account under the same name. Thanks.