Transcript

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hello and welcome back to the Gaming Backlog Book club reminder. We do go into spoilers in this episode, so if you want to avoid that, start at a previous episode, play along and come back to this one once you’re caught up. So, Alex, I don’t know about you, but throughout this season I kind of just flew all over the place with the airship and stopped at every town and point of interest to discover what was out there. I suppose I shouldn’t say season, I mean session. So ever since we got this Falcon airship that’s. I’ve just literally hit up every town that I knew was. Was a town. Any. Anything. As you fly over it and you see a town, you just kind of stop and check it out.

[00:00:35] Speaker B: You just kind of stop and check. Yeah, yeah, I was. I was doing the same thing, but I was also, I will say for this part, like, kind of following a close guide.

A close guide just for time’s sake. And I kind of went in sort of close to an order of how they had it of like what city to city wise.

[00:00:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Because, I mean, I think what I’ve. I found you. Right. And I think you imagine you found this too, is that some of the requirements, whether that be like a person, a specific person in your party for a specific place, which like you can kind of guess based on where you pick them up in the first half of the game in the world of balance. But some of them are very specific. So if you go to a town and nothing happens, you might have no idea that something is supposed to happen there.

So a little bit of guide usage is helpful. I mean, back in. Back when this came out, I’m assuming this is using like one of those hotlines or using Call.

[00:01:30] Speaker B: Call Nintendo Hotline to. Yeah, the.

[00:01:34] Speaker A: What’s it called? Strategy guides that came in magazine format that I know you collect even to this day.

[00:01:38] Speaker B: So yeah, I have a few of them.

[00:01:40] Speaker A: Yeah.

Actually, now that I think about it, I’m surprised you didn’t pick up one of those for this. Would have been fun.

[00:01:46] Speaker B: Yeah, it would. Yeah, I think it would have been fun to have.

[00:01:49] Speaker A: I don’t think I might have looked

[00:01:51] Speaker B: for a Final Fantasy 6 one, but I have a feeling that one might have been.

Maybe it’s dropped now, but some of them are now on the expensive side just because.

[00:02:00] Speaker A: That is very true.

[00:02:01] Speaker B: Like.

Like I’m not willing to pay like 50 to 70 bucks for potentially a strategy guide. I’m like, I’m sorry.

[00:02:07] Speaker A: Like they weren’t anymore. That was a good point. That is A good point.

[00:02:10] Speaker B: Yeah.

So.

[00:02:12] Speaker A: But yeah, no, I used a bit of a guide here, here and there as well, just because I didn’t want to spend, you know, 50 hours, the amount of time it takes to potentially finish the whole game, just looking for things.

[00:02:22] Speaker B: I can tell you on mine. So the Pixel remaster, whenever I quick save it tells me the time, and I think I’m up to 50, almost 60 hours of total game time.

[00:02:29] Speaker A: Well, there you go, you know, the back of the box of all those old Final Fantasy games in this, I guess, in this era too. But I know because I personally had 7, 8, 9 on PlayStation 1 that they all said up to 80 hours of gameplay.

So that was a selling point back then. And it was actually a useful selling point back then when you only got a handful of games even releasing per year that were interesting enough to buy.

All well and good. But now when a game advertises 100 plus hours of gameplay, I just kind of go dead in the eyes and

[00:03:04] Speaker B: hopefully there’s actually an am I going to have. Yeah, I want to mine time to

[00:03:08] Speaker A: like, give me a Witcher 3 that does that and I’m down.

[00:03:11] Speaker B: But

[00:03:14] Speaker A: many other cases are just like filler for filler’s sake. Well, anyway, so because this is an open world segment, let’s just go in no particular order here whatsoever. Did you find Duncan’s cabin near the new location of Narshe?

Duncan being the old leader of Sabin’s crew?

[00:03:32] Speaker B: Yes, I did. I did find Duncan’s. Yeah, Duncan’s cabin.

[00:03:37] Speaker A: It was. It was kind of funny because we didn’t really meet that guy all that much or have much of a conversation with him except picking up Saban. But he’s super useful here because you pick up his ultimate blitz ability, Phantom Rush, which is both an awesome ability that I used every time I had Savan in my party, but also it was my introduction. Introduction to the fact that ultimate abilities even exist here and can be found and unlocked. So, yeah, I definitely went kind of searching for more strong, strong attacks like that.

[00:04:11] Speaker B: Strong attacks. Yeah, I do have. I have.

I’ve had for a while, like the Ultima weapon or the Ultima Sword or somebody.

[00:04:20] Speaker A: Okay, so the Ultima Sword. Yeah, you pick that up.

[00:04:24] Speaker B: It was. I’ve had it for a while, but I haven’t used it for a little bit because.

[00:04:28] Speaker A: Oh, the Ultima Sword. Yeah. No, I think. I don’t remember who. Maybe it was. Ultima weapon dropped. The Ultima Sword. Sounds about right. I’ve Used it actually. A bit. I just put it on whoever kind of has a fairly weak weapon and needs to scale up a little bit.

[00:04:41] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:04:42] Speaker A: In most cases.

[00:04:43] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:04:46] Speaker A: Did you go back to the island where we started, the world of Ruin as Zelus?

[00:04:52] Speaker B: I did. Yes. That was. Yeah. So it’s not like you did. I did that like close to the end. But yes, I did go back to the island where we started.

[00:05:00] Speaker A: So. I mean, I was curious. I was curious, you know, not. Not about Sid because he, you know, as I think happened for both of us, he just kicked the bucket when we didn’t feed him fish fast enough.

[00:05:11] Speaker B: Yep.

[00:05:12] Speaker A: Or fed him the wrong fish.

[00:05:13] Speaker B: Oh. I think I fed him poison fish, so.

[00:05:16] Speaker A: Oh, even worse. Yeah. I must have done the same then. But yeah. So going back to that island. Right. You go. If go to the beach, you can pick up the Quetzali Magicite, which teaches the magic abilities Hastiga and Sloga. Just gotta love the final form of pretty much every magic that has one.

I’m a big fan. Like, obviously.

Surprisingly, there’s a lot of different magic abilities available in this Final Fantasy entry. I feel like some of them are in most, but there’s a handful that aren’t even so I love using haste on myself and slow on the enemies. Just because you squeeze that many more attacks in quick way to kind of mop up when you’re actually able to get them with it.

[00:05:57] Speaker B: Huh. That’s a good idea. I’m. Yeah. I. I will say, like, I haven’t used it. I have like, I have a relic on one or two of them for haste that gives haste to them. Otherwise.

[00:06:06] Speaker A: Yes. I don’t. Hermes boots. I think it is.

[00:06:08] Speaker B: Yeah. I don’t use the.

Those magics. Mainly I use like if I have. I have like Thundara or Fira or Firaga or Thundaga.

[00:06:22] Speaker A: Firaga. Yeah, Firaga. I call it Firaga instead of Firaga.

[00:06:26] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:06:27] Speaker A: Blizzaga. Yeah.

[00:06:28] Speaker B: Yeah.

They destroy. I mean, they do a lot of things.

[00:06:32] Speaker A: They do really well. But if you’re in a fight that’s more elongated. It’s also useful to like put a status effect on them and then. And then kind of like buy yourself more time to get more hits in.

[00:06:46] Speaker B: Yeah, that’s true. I also reflect on quite a few people too, which is really helpful.

[00:06:51] Speaker A: I like that. But I kind of bounced off of using items to heal my party and started really using Kira and Curaga a lot. And then it really bothers me when I forget that I have a reflect Ring on and then heal the enemy.

Happens way too often.

[00:07:05] Speaker B: I use some of the best for healing. Is Mog,

[00:07:11] Speaker A: like, one of his dances?

[00:07:13] Speaker B: If you do wind dance, one of the things that comes up is sunbath. Sunbathe. Sunbathe, I guess.

[00:07:19] Speaker A: Okay, but. So that’s kind of random, though, isn’t it?

[00:07:21] Speaker B: It heals like 1100 to 1500.

[00:07:25] Speaker A: Oh, Jesus. Okay. I don’t think I knew that it’s random.

[00:07:28] Speaker B: So, like, he could do whatever. I think there’s like, wind slash, there’s plasma that comes out of it, but then sunbathe comes out too, so your party can just. And he’s like, gal. Where once you do it, it just keeps going.

[00:07:39] Speaker A: Yeah, it just keeps going. But here’s my question, though.

Go for it.

[00:07:43] Speaker B: No, I was just saying it’s helpful. There are times where I’ve had my people down halfway, and then, boom, he does it. And it does it to everybody.

[00:07:50] Speaker A: Everybody’s okay. Do you think. Do you. I guess someone could know this by, like, digging into the code, but do you think it reads. It does, like an if then kind of pass through check of everyone and says, if below X percent health, use this ability, or do you think it’s literally random rng?

[00:08:09] Speaker B: I think it’s random.

[00:08:11] Speaker A: So, okay, so let me ask you this question. How often have you put on a wind dance, hoping that it would be a heal and then everyone dies or has. Have you just let down?

[00:08:21] Speaker B: No, I’ve just lucked out. I’m not gonna lie.

[00:08:24] Speaker A: All right, well, okay then. Then you. You’re just a lucky guy.

[00:08:27] Speaker B: I guess also for some people here, like some boss people will talk about, I’ve got through.

Not quick, but semi quick, because with the. Edgar, for me, with his chainsaw does, like up to 5, 000 damage a hit.

[00:08:39] Speaker A: Nice. Always good.

[00:08:41] Speaker B: I mean, for some of them, it’s like a quarter of their health, and

[00:08:43] Speaker A: it’s like, okay, well, yeah, I think once I. Once I pick up.

Not with Gal, because Gal has a really, really diverse skill set in his rages. But with Mog, there aren’t so many abilities. So when I use.

Whenever I use one of his dances, I kind of just put on Snowman Rondo, which I think was the most recent one I got. I mean, I should probably, like, discern a little bit more about what exactly I’m doing to who, but. Yeah, but it’s good to know about. What’s it called? Windsomething.

[00:09:12] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s called Wind Dance. I think it’s Wind Dance.

[00:09:14] Speaker A: Wind Dance.

[00:09:14] Speaker B: Yeah, it has. I think it’s like wind slash, plasma.

Wind slash hits everybody. Plasma sometimes hits multiple, but usually just hits one. And then sunbathe just heals everyone with a. A good amount.

[00:09:27] Speaker A: So. Okay, maybe. Maybe I’ll take that in because. Yeah, that’s. Maga is a fun dude to have around, even though he stumbles all the time.

[00:09:35] Speaker B: That’s the thing you got to get. Like, if I can stay up, that’s what. Yeah, there have been times where it’s been. A couple people have got low on health and I. But I just keep doing wind dance until he doesn’t stumble. And then sometimes some bath is the first one or it’s the second one, and then my team gets healed back.

[00:09:51] Speaker A: But. Yeah, right, right, Exactly.

[00:09:52] Speaker B: Yeah. But you’re right. He does stumble a lot.

[00:09:58] Speaker A: So. Okay. And then I did end up. I know we talked about it last time. Which was, okay, the world got destroyed. Does the Veldt still exist? And. Yes, it does. I found it and got Gao back, and I’m glad he made his way back there. After the world fell apart, I knew I was in the right place instantly with that music.

Oh, yeah, Danit.

Yeah, it just plays. And that’s. It’s an interesting case too, because everywhere else in the world map, the music changes to the standard battle music when you get into it. Combat scenario. In the Veldt, it just keeps going because there are so many options. Like, grind the veldt a little bit here and there for new rages. Because I fight new enemies and think, hey, maybe I can take their skill. Because it was super useful. Like, I went for.

I fought this guy named IO. At some point, and I was trying to find him, and I just started grinding the velvet because obviously you don’t get any experience there, but I was just, like, looking for this one dude, and it took just grinding it for so long that that music is way stuck in my head and I can’t stand it anymore. But it was entertaining before that. I guess this is a bit of a, you know, age of the Internet now. Tip is, if you want a specific rage from the Veldt, they actually go in a set order, I think.

[00:11:18] Speaker B: Really? Oh, okay.

[00:11:20] Speaker A: And that may or may not apply, or I just really lucked out and finally found it. I don’t know.

And actually, you know, now that I think about it, I just found IO eventually, just by luck. But I think in your version, in the Pixel remaster, you can.

You can save scum to save right after the. The group that comes before it and then keep reloading it until you find the right enemy.

[00:11:44] Speaker B: Oh, okay. I didn’t know. Okay, interesting.

[00:11:47] Speaker A: In the event that you, you know, either want to do that right now or play this again one day.

[00:11:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I was gonna say, I haven’t done as much of getting all those different types of rages for Gal.

I have quite a few of them, but I have, like three to four that I use a lot, and I know they do a good amount of damage.

[00:12:06] Speaker A: Right.

[00:12:06] Speaker B: Each time, so.

[00:12:10] Speaker A: So, yeah, So, I mean, okay, I don’t know about you, but I’m a big fan of Terra as a black mage of sorts. Plus, her trance ability is awesome, both visually and in my personal opinion, functionally, with its extra damage and extra defense, even though it’s a bit short lived on that meter because we found her last time. But she wanted to stick around with the orphan kids, so I went back to Mobiles trying to find her, and all the kids are alone in their basement under that house, all of them saying, katharine’s pregnant, and she and Duane were kissing. So good for them. Well, that’s great and all, but I absolutely, absolutely do not remember a Dwayne or a Katharine. And we saw them supposedly just last episode.

They must have been in the background with all those kids, but I don’t really remember any conversations with them.

[00:13:00] Speaker B: Yeah, they were. I think it’s when you first go in there on that time.

[00:13:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I’m assuming it was in that basement somewhere in the back.

[00:13:08] Speaker B: If you go and talk around or whatever they say.

[00:13:10] Speaker A: Yeah, well, you know, you hear this story from the kids, they’re gone. And then you go find them in yet another basement by following the dog into a weird corner behind a bookshelf.

[00:13:22] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.

[00:13:23] Speaker A: What’s with the world of ruin and the hidden staircases?

It seems like we keep.

[00:13:27] Speaker B: There’s been a few of them.

[00:13:28] Speaker A: It’s like, what a random trope to create. But Terra and Katharine are both down there. Duane’s stuck upstairs being an asshole ever since she got pregnant.

Pretty rude if you ask me.

And then he comes downstairs to apologize, but, oh, just like that, Humbaba is back.

Yes, and as a double whammy this time, too, because he fights you back to back.

[00:13:52] Speaker B: Yeah, he does. Yeah, that’s right.

[00:13:55] Speaker A: But I will say, after a handful of phantom rush attacks from Sabin, he used his Humbaba breath move twice in a row and literally blew Edgar and Gau off the battlefield. And I couldn’t find them anywhere after it at all. Turned out they Were back on the airship the whole time.

[00:14:13] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:14:14] Speaker A: Humbaba sure has some strong lungs, huh?

[00:14:17] Speaker B: Yeah, he does. I don’t actually know if he used it again in this fight against me.

He used it could.

[00:14:25] Speaker A: Depending on when you got people. It may have. Depend on who was in your party.

[00:14:29] Speaker B: Yeah, he used. Yeah. A thousand needles was definitely one he used.

That was annoying. I don’t remember who was in my party. Who’s in your. Yeah, who’s.

[00:14:37] Speaker A: Cause it’s at this point it was Sabin, Edgar, Gao, and I guess it must have been Selis.

[00:14:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Because then someone.

Oh, maybe he does, because you only fight him against with. Is it three people?

[00:14:52] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:14:54] Speaker B: Yeah. So two get blown away, right?

[00:14:55] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that’s right. You’re right.

[00:14:57] Speaker B: So, yeah, so two of mine did get blown away. I forgot. So then I had Terra, I think Edgar.

And then who was my last one? It may have been Sabin or it might have been. Yeah.

[00:15:08] Speaker A: It might just be luck. Who knows? Yeah, but you know, this guy’s got strong lungs to literally blow two people off the ground up into the air and somehow land them directly onto an

[00:15:21] Speaker B: airship onto the ship.

[00:15:24] Speaker A: It makes me wonder how he would have performed in Blitzball in Final Fantasy 10 since they hold their breath. But, you know, blowing away two members was just the intermission that allowed that tranced version of Terra to join us and then wipe out Humbaba once and for all. I gotta say, this is where I just abused Phantom Rush. And I love that ability. And, you know, I think I just. You know, ever since then, I just haven’t really stopped using it whenever Saban’s around. Unless he needs to heal someone for some reason.

[00:15:50] Speaker B: I don’t think I’ve used Phantom.

[00:15:54] Speaker A: Okay, you should change that. Now.

[00:15:56] Speaker B: What is the one.

Oh, my God, I can’t remember. I use the one that’s like the meteor strike that hits multiple enemies.

[00:16:03] Speaker A: Sort of. Meteor strike. It’s like fireballs, though. It’s called Meteor strike.

[00:16:07] Speaker B: Yeah, no, the meteor strike one is like him lifting someone up and throwing him down. Okay, which one’s Phantom Rush again?

[00:16:15] Speaker A: Phantom Rush. He literally just.

He just jumps on him and then spins around in a circle around him and supposedly is punching the whole time.

[00:16:24] Speaker B: Oh, no, I haven’t used that. I’ve used. I’ve used Raging Fist and then.

[00:16:28] Speaker A: Yeah, but you said you have Phantom Rush from. From Duncan earlier, right?

[00:16:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:16:34] Speaker A: Okay, you should stop using everything else and start using that.

[00:16:38] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:16:38] Speaker A: Trust me. Trust me, I will.

[00:16:40] Speaker B: No, I will.

[00:16:42] Speaker A: But anyway, we kill off Humbaba the kids are scared because you see Trance Tara, but, you know, she comes back to normal. They realize it’s her and all good. And so her motivation for now finally rejoining us is to make the world a better place out of love for those many kids that she’s a foster mom to and for, I’m assuming, Dwayne and Katharine’s eventual baby. So good on her. And good on us too, because Tara’s great.

[00:17:06] Speaker B: Yes.

[00:17:07] Speaker A: I will probably still call her my MVP at this point. Did you realize this is not specific to any given moment of the story, but did you realize that equipping the Genji glove relic allows you to dual wield weapons instead of a weapon and shield?

[00:17:23] Speaker B: No, I don’t think I realized it. Let me. Oh, I think I have it on somebody too, but I think I might have a.

What do I have? I gotta check that again.

I think I have that on someone, but I didn’t think I realized what it did.

[00:17:36] Speaker A: Yeah. So, yeah, I guess I might have noticed two weapons on a character before and wondered like, oh, that’s cool, because I placed them there. But I thought it was. I didn’t realize it was associated to a relic specifically. I thought it was just something that that character had or that’s something that all characters could do. And I would try to equip in the left hand and it would remove the weapon from the right hand. So I was super confused for a while. Yeah, I thought it was that particular character’s skill set. And then it made me realize that that was what it was because I removed it and one of the weapons got removed, so I put it back on. It also made me realize I should have named Shadow because you can name all these characters. I should have named Shadow as Genji from Overwatch.

[00:18:17] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

[00:18:18] Speaker A: Practically the same thing.

[00:18:20] Speaker B: It is, practically. Yeah. It’s very close.

[00:18:22] Speaker A: You know, he throws shurikens and he has a katana. It’s like the same thing. No dog, though. With Genji.

[00:18:31] Speaker B: No.

[00:18:31] Speaker A: Let’s see now. It was about this time for me that I realized just how much I love, just love flying the airships in this game.

Obviously here the overworld map isn’t even all that huge. And there’s not necessarily all that much to do with the airship other than fly, spot something that catches your eye, land and explore the area, or fly deliberately to where, you know, something is.

Or I guess a third option is go inside the airship itself and talk to people, change your party, et cetera.

[00:19:03] Speaker B: But yeah, yeah. I will say, though, Chris, quickly on this airship. What I loved about the old airship was that you had a place inside where you could go heal your teammates for free and you could buy points where here you don’t have that. And so you have to, like, go to a town or. I was like, ah, definitely missed a loss.

[00:19:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, you have to go to a town or go to the Overworld and use a tent or.

[00:19:27] Speaker B: Yeah, use a tent.

[00:19:29] Speaker A: A bit annoying. This is a very good point. Yes. They should have included that in the Falcon. I feel like they could have set it up.

[00:19:34] Speaker B: I think so too.

[00:19:36] Speaker A: But, yeah, so I think it’s, you know, the speed that you can fly over the map just gave me kind of a bit of pure joy without any destination in mind and watching the world whiz by underneath. And then it dawned on me exactly why I liked it so much. So it reminded me of the many, many, many hours I spe playing the game Chocobo Racing as a kid on the original PlayStation.

And I’m sure that Chocobo Racing had its flaws, but for me, it was a fantastic kart racer in my prime of living Final Fantasy as a series. I just loved Final Fantasy back then. And so Chugo Racing was the perfect complement to it and I couldn’t get enough of it. Really good memories from that game. I was very disappointed when they tried remaking it as a cash grab for Switch. That was all focused on micro transactions and the typical season crap.

That stuff is ruining gaming, to be honest. In that corner. Yes, it is of the industry. But fortunately there’s enough backlog here that we’ll never have to touch them if we don’t want to, which we don’t.

From. Let’s see, from here, I went back to Narsh.

Figured I’d check out the caves because that was like one of the very first things places that we fought people in and stumbled upon Mog, who’s just literally staring at a wall.

Yep, Mohg in this moment kind of reminded me a little bit of the weird dudes in Temi Village and Undertale. We played back in season five of the podcast because they’re just super quirky. But luckily, chatting with him let him join our party again, which he was delighted to do, considering he thought we all died. He. He joined, but not before mentioning he thinks the yeti will join us too, if he orders it to. Only Mog immediately went back to the Falcon, and I didn’t want to fight a yeti in that moment. That sounds scary, right? Not that we haven’t Fought more horrific, difficult things like Ultima Weapon and demons and all that stuff. But you can’t.

It just. You can’t possibly recruit a yeti to your party. Right. So I assumed it had to be a mini boss of some kind.

And then, you know, obviously. Okay, of course I did want to fight a yeti. Who doesn’t want to fight a yeti in a game like this in a snow.

So I realized you did, Mog. I bailed out of the cave, went back to the airship, put in my party and started this process over again. But I went in the front door of Narshe this time and there was that. You know, as you go towards the back end of the Narshe area, there was a small esper looking dragon sprite flapping around that ice canyon that we defended Narshe from Kefka way earlier.

[00:22:08] Speaker B: Yep.

[00:22:10] Speaker A: Yeah. I’m assuming you fought him here. This is. I did.

[00:22:12] Speaker B: I fought. Yeah, I fought the ice. Yeah, the ice canyon.

[00:22:15] Speaker A: This is my first of the eight dragons.

Um, don’t. Don’t know what order it came in for you. Um, it’s funny though, because the sprite in the canyon is. Look, almost looks cute.

Like it almost looks like Spyro or like a cutesy dragon. And then you go into battle and see that it was like.

It’s not even.

It’s funny because it takes the. All the dragons just like put a color swap on sprites of other enemies in the game. And this one in particular was just like this dinky little like, I don’t even know, like lizard kind of thing that maybe looks like a dragon.

I underestimated it after I saw that, but it turned out to be pretty strong with high ice damage, of course.

[00:22:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it did.

But I mean, I don’t know. I got through it. I think I had.

[00:22:58] Speaker A: It wasn’t that tough. I mean, you see an ice dragon, use fire on it and call it a day.

[00:23:02] Speaker B: Yeah, use fire. Yeah, exactly.

[00:23:05] Speaker A: And then past that up on the cliff, found the Esper trapped in ice. From the beginning of the game, fought it and by beating it, you actually free it this time. And it turns out to be an esper called Valigarmanda. And boy, am I glad I did find it. Because the magic it teaches are those three main aga spells. Firaga, Blizzaga and Thundaga.

And so you can guess that obviously I immediately put it onto the mages to have them learn it as quickly as possible.

[00:23:36] Speaker B: Smart. I forgot who I put it on now, but they actually. Yeah, I think I might have put it on.

Yeah, it might have been on Celeste.

[00:23:44] Speaker A: That’s a smart choice. That is one of the best choices.

But yeah. So, okay, from there it becomes time to hunt the yeti.

And it was here in the yeti cave where I finally bust out of my shell and tried out more of the status effect magic abilities. Right. I was talking about Hastiga and Slowga, so I started using them. Really at this point.

[00:24:06] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:24:07] Speaker A: In other Final Fantasy games, I kind of defaulted to tons of elemental magic, you know, the ones we were just talking about. But here I felt like I kind of needed more than that.

So I set invisible on myself. So a vanish ability.

[00:24:22] Speaker B: Oh, okay.

[00:24:23] Speaker A: Very nice to not get hit by some of the high damage, you know, physical attacks. And then I used silence on the yeti. I use silence on enemies, which is, you know, it cancels out.

It cancels the ability to use magic, which is a thing that happens to us sometimes. So they couldn’t use their super heavy hitting magic on me.

Both worked wonders. And as long as they continue to work, they’ll stay part of my of my skill set. Although obviously heavy hitting damaging magic seems to be more of the name of the game these days.

[00:24:53] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:24:55] Speaker A: And you know, I guess at this point, right, we were talking about, about this yeti, like could you really have a Yeti as a party member after Moxie and. And well, they actually did it. You can have an actual yeti as a party member.

[00:25:08] Speaker B: Yeah, you can. It’s cool.

[00:25:10] Speaker A: And he’s got a name.

He’s got a name. Umaru.

[00:25:14] Speaker B: Umaru. Yeah.

[00:25:16] Speaker A: I suppose the fact that you can have a Yeti as a party member shouldn’t surprise me, considering most final fantasies I’ve played have at least some kind of oddball non human character like Red XIII and Cait Sith and Seven, that kind of rooster looking dude that I don’t remember the name of from Nine. And I guess even Zidane, the main protagonist of Nine has a tail. And then you just recently played Ten. Isn’t there like a blue humanoid lion thing?

[00:25:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes. Oh my God, yes. And I’m now forgetting his name.

[00:25:49] Speaker A: Kimari Kamari.

[00:25:51] Speaker B: Kamara. Yeah, yeah, something like that. Yeah, he was cool.

[00:25:57] Speaker A: Totally. But hey, Umaro the Yeti is pretty cool from a design standpoint. Kind of lackluster in my opinion, as a powerful party member, but he’s still entertaining to put in there. I kind of stayed away from using him too much because you can’t control him at all. He’s just there auto Attacking.

And here’s a really random, random note here that. Not random for us, actually. It’s just a random observation.

This is the second time after Kefka that we see a character in battle, both as a really beautifully detailed painted character as well as pixel art.

[00:26:33] Speaker B: Yes.

Yeah, it is.

[00:26:36] Speaker A: Because you fight him and then you get him in your party. What a random other character to do that for. I figured it would be Kefka and that’s it. But hey, all good.

Went on from there to save Shadow for the behemoth in the cave on the veldt while I was farming a bunch of more new rages. Nothing particularly small special there, but I’m glad that his dog, Interceptor helped you find him.

[00:27:01] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:27:04] Speaker A: And then, yeah, I mean, at this point, I, I, because of Shadow, I, he wasn’t immediately in your party after that. I was like, well, I want Shadow. So I, I looked it up and found out where to find him either.

[00:27:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Found out where to get Shadow.

[00:27:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Cause I don’t, I, you know, I had heard about the Coliseum, I believe from someone mentioning it on disc. It didn’t draw me all that much. So I, but I’m glad that I looked it up because I found out that Shadow is there. Hilarious. That Ultros is now the receptionist of the Coliseum.

[00:27:38] Speaker B: Yes. I thought that was, yeah, pretty funny.

[00:27:41] Speaker A: Like, and here I thought we killed him once and for all and nope, he just went and decided to change his job because he, because he kept losing.

[00:27:50] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:27:51] Speaker A: The fact that it was the weird old guy’s dream from when he found them all hermit style in that cabin in the world of balance to build this thing. And then he’s thanking Kefka for making it possible.

Just rubs you the wrong way. Like, okay, what a bootlegger. Yeah, it does kind of reflects in the real world. And then the Colosseum itself is such a, it’s a unique implementation here, I’ll give them that. You know, it’s like it’s a, this is a turn based, menu based, JRPG style game.

And all those games already remove a degree of control away from you by, you know, just the very nature of you not controlling your party in real time.

And then here you don’t even control their moves. You just watch them fight and hope you get the best.

[00:28:35] Speaker B: I think as long as you pick the right person. I forgot who, who did you pick for? Yeah, the whole fighting sequence against Shadow. Because obviously, as you said, you can’t, you can’t pick your moves. It’s just automatic and so knowing that I like find that out. Luckily I had, I think Edgar in my party and I picked Edgar because I was like, well, he has chainsaw and crossbow for me and if he does those, it’s gonna do a lot of damage. So I was like, I’m more than likely gonna win. So I picked Edgar for me and

[00:29:05] Speaker A: that’s who I used to. I hear that. I actually, because I had just picked up Umaro, I tried it with him because like, you can’t control him anyway. So I, I tried, I tried him and he kept dying.

So I switched to MOG just because he would just happen to be in my party and I didn’t want to go back to the Falcon.

And he immediately wiped the floor with Shadow. So nice.

Like I don’t remember what, which dance he ended up using, but he just crushed him.

But yeah, I mean it’s a intriguing, is an intriguing concept. I like what they did with it. It’s not something I wanted to invest a bunch of time in because yeah, you can’t control the move. You just watch them fight like, and then on top of that you have to bet an item and you can permanently lose your item if you lose the fight. So, you know, I, I, man, I would not have enjoyed being those guinea pigs who lost a bunch of valuable stuff in the name of getting of like writing guides for the Internet and figuring out the intricacies of every single bedding combination kind of wild stuff. So I’m glad I knew exactly how to get Shadow back. And I don’t think I ever came back here.

No, but it’s, it’s a cool mechanic. I’m sure some people just like love the hell out of it, the risk reward there. So I, yeah, I basically, I just grabbed Shadow a couple pieces of other equipment in that same round and moved along and yeah, I never went back.

[00:30:33] Speaker B: Yeah, same.

There was no reason for me.

[00:30:35] Speaker A: At the end of the day, I’m just too risk averse to gamble my precious items and then too lazy to constantly reload a save if I bet something big.

So I took a pass. Yeah, no thanks.

Just give me the guarantees. Yeah, or the RNGs. So cyan is such a goofy, gentlemanly romantic, wouldn’t you say?

[00:30:59] Speaker B: Yes, yes, he is. He is a.

[00:31:03] Speaker A: I think, yeah, he’s definitely one of the best comic relief characters here. Maybe the second best after Ultros, you know, I agree. I would put him maybe in first except for what happened with his family and this kind of moral, the story type moment that happens because those are much more poignant kind of exceptions to the comic relief side of things. But, yeah, you know, he’s decided to ghost write letters to the injured now dead soldier’s girlfriend Lola for a whole year just to keep her hope alive. You know, his family’s got any. I don’t think he has any romantic interest in her at all. He just wants to, like, keep the dream alive for someone else.

So he’s doing this also from the top of a mountain. Like, how poetic. Using that same carrier pigeon postal service.

And even though she started to suspect it wasn’t him in the first place, she just kept sending responses back.

[00:32:03] Speaker B: Yep.

Yeah.

It’s a funny thing with Saya.

[00:32:09] Speaker A: I mean, it’s just super the way

[00:32:11] Speaker B: he speaks, the way he’s. Yeah, he’s like all the flat. He’s like, however many flowers all back there, just keep sending one after the other after each letter comes back.

[00:32:22] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And then he just is hoping for a.

When someone shows up at his cliffside doorstep, he finally realizes that the charade wasn’t worth it in the end to just perpetually delay her coping and decided to stop. So, you know, thanks, Cyan. Did you at any point go back to Miranda with Cyan in your party and talk to Lola?

[00:32:45] Speaker B: I don’t think I have. No.

[00:32:47] Speaker A: I don’t think I do.

It’s one of those many moments that’s like a couple seconds worth or like three boxes of dialogue. But he kind of just says, hey, it was me. She’s like, yeah, I realize it wasn’t him. And he just gave this kind of moral of the story thing of, yeah, everyone should cope and then move on.

So.

So Relm was busy painting a demon possessed painting. And Strego got lured into a cult to Kefka. Like, what an odd family.

[00:33:21] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s a very odd family.

[00:33:22] Speaker A: It’s like, you know, they go. They do these weird things. They go and hide away. I mean, I guess the place that they’re from is just this town that uses magic but tries to hide it.

Whatever. I guess teach their own. That’s the kind of society they want to live in. But do you think they purposefully designed the rich guy that Relm was painting for to be as close to Jabba the Hutt as possible?

Just much creepier since Relm is very much only a kid, unlike Leia.

[00:33:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I think he did a bit. Yeah, he did sort of look like a Jabba the Hutt to me. He also looked to me because I played it after I’d literally Like, just gone to Disneyland the day before. I was like, it kind of looks like a giant, like, Mr. Toad.

[00:34:06] Speaker A: Okay. As well. Yeah, no, it’s definitely more frog like than Jabba and more human looking too. But it kind of just rubbed me the wrong way, the way that he looked.

[00:34:18] Speaker B: No, I agree. Yeah, definitely.

[00:34:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, I did. Because you have to get Strago there. I did start up the cultist tower, realized it was just a challenge dungeon, and decided to bail out. Since from what I could tell, there really wasn’t any story to extract from it, I felt it was better to spend my time elsewhere.

[00:34:40] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn’t even try. I think at that point, someone in our sleeper, in our. In our discord, had mentioned something that it wasn’t.

Nothing really great in it, and it’s just a little extra if you want to do it. And I was like, you know what? And I read a little description about it, and I was like, I’m good. Like, I’m not even. I didn’t even try. I got Strago back when I got Realm got him back. And then I was like, nope, not even gonna try the tower.

[00:35:06] Speaker A: Oh, Strago. Okay. That’s another way to say it. I don’t know why I’ve called him Strago. In my head.

It probably makes more sense. No, no, I don’t think there’s. I mean, maybe there is an official way, but I don’t think we’ve heard anyone talking about it, so who knows? It’s gotta be one of those two, though. But continuing on with him and his story, did you go fight Hidan?

[00:35:27] Speaker B: Yes, I did.

[00:35:30] Speaker A: So in case anyone didn’t do this part, Strago and his old pal Gung Ho were hunting this giant legendary monster called Hidon as young adults and never managed to find it. Maybe find it, but not beat it. And he lives in a randomized dungeon, and some minions that all have completely different weaknesses surround him. Kind of like those tentacles that jammed up the gears of the Figaro Castle before.

And then, see, you beat it. And then you go back to town and hear the rest of the story. And it turns out that after all of Strago’s old man style bragging story of beating him, Realm and Gung Ho had been scheming the whole time to get him to actually do something about it.

[00:36:17] Speaker B: Yep. I felt that that was pretty. That was pretty funny.

[00:36:21] Speaker A: It was all just the way that they convinced him was that Gung Ho was pretending that he was, like, mortally injured and was, you know, needed the revenge. And he was never injured in the first place. What a good friend, though.

[00:36:32] Speaker B: I know.

[00:36:34] Speaker A: You know, I hope one day you’ll hatch a plan with my granddaughter to get me to take action if I ever become an annoying old dude full of crap.

[00:36:42] Speaker B: Okay, I will. I’ll think of something.

[00:36:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Please do. Please do bookmark this for, like, 30 years from now.

Did you. Killed.

[00:36:52] Speaker B: Speaking. Go ahead, speaking. No, speaking of this, did you go talk to Gung Ho after you beat him while he’s outside? Did he say anything to you?

[00:36:59] Speaker A: I did. I did, But I don’t recall what he said, to be honest.

[00:37:03] Speaker B: So for me, he said, like. Like, first off, he says, like, you okay? Everything good and something around those lines. And then I went back and talked to him again, and then he said, oh, someone said they saw the monster again at the cave.

And so I looked.

[00:37:18] Speaker A: Didn’t see that.

[00:37:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I looked it up, and, like, on the guide I was looking at, and I guess there’s a 12.5% chance that Haydn comes back, he respawns Ebbitt Rock, and you can fight him again.

[00:37:33] Speaker A: I wonder what the point of doing that is. Just. Just more grounding, I guess.

[00:37:36] Speaker B: The point there’s. You have the ability. The opportunity to learn an ability called

[00:37:40] Speaker A: Grand Delta, which I did take Grand Delta.

I use it a lot.

[00:37:46] Speaker B: I did not. And I fought him twice. I went back the second time and fought him and beat him again.

[00:37:51] Speaker A: Oh, did you not get grand.

[00:37:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I did not get Grand Delta. And I was like, well, I don’t think he’s coming back, so. And I wasn’t gonna, like, re. Like, reload and try again. I’m like, I’m not trying. Like, it’s fine.

[00:38:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. Grand Tilt is very useful. It brings up this giant kind of triangle that looks like a black hole, and it spins around, and it does a lot of damage to everyone, every enemy. I like it.

[00:38:13] Speaker B: Oh, well, good for you for getting it. I did not get it. So I tried to get it on that second opportunity, but I didn’t get it there either. But that’s okay.

[00:38:20] Speaker A: Well, that’s sheer luck for me, then.

[00:38:22] Speaker B: Yeah, it is.

[00:38:27] Speaker A: Later, you have an opportunity to be inhaled by a sandworm straight out of Dune.

[00:38:34] Speaker B: Yep, I know what you’re talking about,

[00:38:35] Speaker A: and it’s totally worth it. It was just a really weird dungeon, though, because there are these weird soldier guys guarding broken bridges who don’t fight you when you touch them. They just knock you off the bridge. So for the second time In Final Fantasy 6 we have a version of Frogger to play here where you have to like dodge these guys and then hop across bridges. And then there’s a springboard chest jumping minigame again in a future room.

And then finally you find Gogo, who’s this mysterious gypsy looking character that can literally use anybody else’s special unique ability except Terra. From what I can tell, there’s no trance option. Reminds me physically at least, if not skill set wise, of the character in Final Fantasy 9 that looks like this weird anthropomorphic ghost frog with a chef’s hat and an apron.

I don’t know if you know who I’m talking about, and I don’t know what they’re called. I don’t.

[00:39:29] Speaker B: I don’t remember off the top of my head. No. It’s been so long since I’ve played nine. Like, I can’t tell you.

[00:39:35] Speaker A: So long.

I will say, you know, it looks like the thing from Dune, but also getting inhaled is like Jabu Jabu from Ocarina of Time.

So obviously Ocarina of Time came out after Final Fantasy 6. So I’m wondering if the inspiration came from this or if they just, you know, came up with it. But I have to imagine it was in the back of their heads, even if they weren’t thinking about it consciously.

[00:40:02] Speaker B: I’m sure.

[00:40:06] Speaker A: From here, with Gogo in hand, I went to the ancient castle.

I’m not sure if that’s something that you did. I believe you mentioned that. Or you showed me a photo of it. Right. So this is if you go into Figaro Castle and then you do the transfer under the earth from desert to desert, right?

[00:40:26] Speaker B: Yes. Okay.

[00:40:27] Speaker A: And then the engineer tells you the gears. Are you jammed up on something so you can get off of the castle. It’s weird to call a castle, like it’s a vehicle, but here it is.

[00:40:36] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:40:38] Speaker A: And you go through the cave and then the cave that we used to infiltrate the castle earlier.

And then you’re in an ancient castle which is very, you know, kind of old school style. It looks like something out of Dark Souls, to be honest, if there was a pixel Dark Souls. But it’s very much Japanese themes and quite fun for me. Fighting samurai ghosts and, you know, battling through a couple people. And you get the Odin esper, which I always enjoy having when I use it in a Final Fantasy game. That meteor spell that he teaches is so great in so many cases.

[00:41:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did get all that. Yeah. That was a fun part to. To go through.

I.

I haven’t used his. I’ve equipped it to somebody. I forgot who I equipped the Odin one to now. But I have equipped it, but I haven’t got to use it yet.

[00:41:26] Speaker A: I would definitely do that while you’re doing this last part of the game here.

[00:41:30] Speaker B: Okay.

[00:41:31] Speaker A: Because meteor is fun. Fun to use.

[00:41:34] Speaker B: Okay. Also in this part, did you collect the blizzard orb?

[00:41:42] Speaker A: Maybe. I want to say maybe no, because I don’t remember that.

[00:41:47] Speaker B: So I suppose that orb something.

Yeah, I picked up the blizzard orb and then when you look at it, it says maybe put it on a yeti. See what it does.

So I put it on something along those lines. I put it on the yeti on a Maru. Maru Umaru Maru. And yeah, you can’t control his attacks, but he starts with like a snowstorm or blue whatever, instantly, and it does a ton of damage. And then he does slam and other stuff that does a ton. But it starts off instantly with like, I forgot. I don’t know if I. I assume he didn’t do snow. I don’t think he did. I didn’t use him too much before, so I can’t remember. I don’t think he does snowstorm before. I think he kind of just rams people. If I remember rightly, he just starts with the slam. But yeah, he starts with a strong snowstorm that hits everybody and then he can do that a couple times. Yeah, it’s good though. I like it. It definitely does a good amount of damage. It’s good for him.

[00:42:42] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:42:43] Speaker B: So if you have it.

[00:42:43] Speaker A: I put it on him. If I have it. I’ll look at my item and see if it shows up.

[00:42:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s one of the.

[00:42:48] Speaker A: Maybe it’s in there. It’s a relic, you say?

[00:42:50] Speaker B: Yeah, one of the relics.

[00:42:51] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe it’s there. I just didn’t. Didn’t read the description or know what it was. Good tip. Did you do the whole dream sequence with Cyan?

[00:43:00] Speaker B: Yes, I did.

[00:43:01] Speaker A: Yeah, man, for such a cheery guy, he has some dark dreams.

[00:43:05] Speaker B: Yeah, he does.

[00:43:07] Speaker A: It doesn’t help when elf gnome guys enter your head and then your friends enter your head too, you know, as if he didn’t have it bad enough. You’ve got everyone in your business. But at least he got some closure with his wife and son.

[00:43:21] Speaker B: Yeah, he did.

That was. Yeah, it was nice that he got some closure. But I will say. So the first, like the little first bits of battle in there with those three guys, what would they call them?

[00:43:32] Speaker A: And the.

They were. They look like.

[00:43:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. I didn’t even. I didn’t even realize this. They’re called Kerlax, Laragorn and Mobius. So Curly, Larry and Mo, basically, that’s why they called the Dream Stooges.

[00:43:46] Speaker A: Three Stooges. All right. There you go.

[00:43:48] Speaker B: Oh, my God.

[00:43:48] Speaker A: I didn’t make a lot of sense.

[00:43:50] Speaker B: Just looking it up now, quickly seeing the names. That’s so funny. Yeah, I fought them. They weren’t actually too hard. I got through them pretty quick, especially because I had.

[00:43:56] Speaker A: I think.

[00:43:57] Speaker B: I think I had Edgar in my party, Terra, Mog, and then Cyan. So it would have been those four in the party. And I was able to just do a lot of damage, get through them. They weren’t so hard. The last boss, that’s like holding his soul or whatever.

The Rex soul. Oh, that was.

[00:44:21] Speaker A: Yeah. That guy destroyed me.

[00:44:24] Speaker B: Such an annoying fight.

I actually beat it on the first go, but it took, I feel like, three times longer than what it should have taken.

Right.

[00:44:38] Speaker A: I don’t disagree with you there. It’s pretty.

[00:44:40] Speaker B: He goes into one of your guys.

[00:44:43] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:44:43] Speaker B: And you don’t like random.

You don’t know which one.

And the only way to get him out is. I didn’t have. And no one in my party there had a spell that could get him out.

So basically the only way was to get one of my party knocked out. Like, that person had to get knocked

[00:44:59] Speaker A: out, like, fully killed.

[00:45:01] Speaker B: And so I ended up with Mog. I’d done Wind Dance, so I’m like, trying.

[00:45:06] Speaker A: Oh, so you can’t even control Mog.

[00:45:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I’m trying to kill my own party members.

[00:45:11] Speaker A: But then also.

[00:45:13] Speaker B: Yeah, but then I couldn’t use magic because then also a couple of them have reflect. And it just reflect back.

Like, oh, my God. So I just had to do regular physical attacks on them.

Whatever I have on Edgar, I have, like a strong sword on him. So he was doing like a thousand plus damage.

But it took me a while. I killed each party member to find out where he is. And then I’d like, bring back with a Phoenix down. And then luckily, with Wind Dance going, then Sunbathe would come in and bring him back if I. But then there were times where I’d get him down to, like, 30 health. And then all of a sudden, Sunbathe comes in and it’s like back up to 1500. I’m like, oh, my God, this is taking so long.

[00:45:52] Speaker A: That’s a good combo. You know, I ended up. I got so pissed at that fight that I ended up.

I looked that one up. And so again, I had something somewhat similar, but I ended up finding out you can use Petrify to turn a character into stone. So I had someone that had. I don’t remember what the actual. I think it’s called break is the name of the skill that turns them into a rock. Break or banish.

Break. Banish makes them literally go into a black hole. But so I used break and it. And it did the same effect because I wasn’t able to kill anyone. Like, I was trying to deliberately kill my own party members with attacks and it wasn’t working fast enough. So, yeah, I. I used the break strategy. That was the only option.

[00:46:36] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s just good times.

[00:46:38] Speaker A: Good times.

[00:46:40] Speaker B: I mean, by the time I killed, like, I was doing a ton of damage to him. But then there was just. He went. Starts off going right into somebody and then I got him out and then he went back in and I was like, oh, my God, it’s just taking so long. But yeah.

[00:46:56] Speaker A: Hey, Alex, it’s 2:00′.

[00:46:58] Speaker B: Clock.

[00:46:58] Speaker A: I gotta get off actually, because I’m on a hazard class right now.

If we can find some time, hopefully late, I mean, if you’re available for like maybe 10, 15 minutes tonight, otherwise that’s probably. That probably makes the most sense. Yeah, I have like a handful more notes about finding lock and some stuff, but it should be like maximum of 15 minutes later.

[00:47:20] Speaker B: Okay, that’s fine. All right.

[00:47:21] Speaker A: All right, thanks. Thanks. All right, talk to you later. See you.

Don’t forget to stop it or pause it.

So I stumbled on Death Gaze randomly while just flying around. I know you and I talked about it briefly outside of this. You know, the giant purple vortex in the sky and on land was super scary looking.

And then the fight itself turns into this weird cat and mouse game because despite Death Gaze itself being super creepy and scary looking and it’s art, it realizes it’s outmatched and just keeps running away.

[00:47:58] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, Yeah, I fought it once.

Like right at the beginning of this episode. Like, I fought it. What? Just flying around randomly. I, like, just randomly flew into the bike hole. Just kind of popped out of nowhere and I flew into it. I was like, oh. And I fought him and he ran away.

And then since then, I’ve seen him. I’ve seen the black hole once flying around and I’ve just avoided it. I was like, I’m not even gonna.

Because I looked it up and I was like, I’m not gonna fight him. Okay, Okay, I hear you. Yeah.

[00:48:26] Speaker A: And that probably was the right course of Action. I realized you gotta keep.

Because. Right. We found out about Death Gaze in the previous episode because someone in the town was mentioning it.

[00:48:37] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:48:37] Speaker A: And once I realized it runs away, I realized you have to like chase it down and just fly around and chase it down. But there’s no like set rhyme or reason of where it’s going to be. So it’s kind of annoying.

But I decided to just go after it anyway because why do you want something like that in the sky? And cool. Basically you just attack it. It runs away. I think it ran away from me like five or six times.

[00:49:03] Speaker B: Oh geez.

[00:49:05] Speaker A: So it’s quite annoying. And then when you finally whittle its health all the way down, it does indeed die. And it’s like. It doesn’t even take that much damage. But I think it. I think it tracks the damage you’ve done when it runs away. And it starts from that point instead of respawning all of its health.

[00:49:21] Speaker B: Yeah. I read that it doesn’t respawn that health.

[00:49:24] Speaker A: Okay. I was gonna say. Because otherwise then he’s got like a very small health pool.

When you finally whittle its health down, it dies and it gives you the Bahamut esper. Which is an esper. Well, it’s a summon that I also have. Many of these late game summons are always very entertaining to use in most of the FF games I’ve played.

Especially just in how the scene of them attacking is. But extra layer here of the Esper also teaching you magic. It’s very useful because Bahamut teaches you flare, which is great.

And you can get versions of flare in other places. I think you. One of the. At least one of the rages that Gao has can do flare. There’s probably some other spots too. But. But I. I put Bahamut on my mages just to get flare equipped for sure. Because it’s just so good at dealing damage.

[00:50:21] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:50:22] Speaker A: Okay.

And then I think we had our kind of interesting experience. I don’t know how early or late you ended up going in search of luck.

[00:50:35] Speaker B: It’s about probably midway for me at that point for.

Yeah. For character wise of how many I

[00:50:42] Speaker A: had of like the characters you were talking back already.

[00:50:45] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:50:45] Speaker A: Gotcha. I. For whatever reason, he was the last one that I found.

And. But it puts you into that scenario where you have to actually create two parties again.

Do you happen to remember who your two parties were here?

[00:51:07] Speaker B: Yeah. I always. I can tell you when I have two parties. I always have one that has Terra and then one that has Celes.

[00:51:13] Speaker A: Okay.

[00:51:14] Speaker B: Like, I always put them together. No, I always.

[00:51:16] Speaker A: It makes sense because they’re both, you know, have a similar skill set and very strong.

[00:51:20] Speaker B: And then usually I’ll put someone like.

I’ll split usually like Cyan and Edgar or someone like that. Or just because then I know because they both have too strong.

Like with Flurry with Cyan.

Cyan or Chainsaw with Edgar or whatever. And then I usually keep Sabin with Edgar. And then Gao was like with Cyan. And then

[00:51:48] Speaker A: Cyan was part of the party when you find gal the first time.

[00:51:50] Speaker B: Right.

[00:51:50] Speaker A: So it kind of makes lore sense.

[00:51:52] Speaker B: Yeah. So I probably. Because I definitely had Cyan Gal at that. So I probably had. It’s probably Terra saying gal.

And then who would have been the fourth?

And then it would have been Celes, Saban, Edgar.

Was it groups of four?

[00:52:11] Speaker A: It was groups of four. If you had up to four people already. If you had up to eight people already available by then. I’m.

[00:52:17] Speaker B: I’m trying to remember. I may have only had groups of three.

[00:52:22] Speaker A: Yeah, that’s probably reasonable too.

[00:52:24] Speaker B: Yeah. I don’t remember then who my fourths would have been.

Maybe Mog. Oh, I might have Mog in one.

[00:52:32] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. That’s probably likely.

[00:52:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I.

Yeah, no, I didn’t have Strogo. I didn’t have Strawgo. I don’t think yet.

[00:52:39] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. Interesting. Maybe you had a set, sir, because we found him last time around, too.

[00:52:45] Speaker B: I had said. No, I. Yeah, I had Sensor, like this whole. I didn’t even, like, use him.

[00:52:50] Speaker A: Very nice. I mean, he’s not that. Yeah. You know, Setzer, I found it usually pretty bad defense. And like, his. I like his slots special ability. His regular attacks is garbage. He’s not a great magic user. So, like, I don’t. Yeah, I had to grind him up the. One of the most characters. I had to grind up one of the most. For towards the end there, I would

[00:53:14] Speaker B: have had Umaru in one. The Yeti. I would have had the yeti.

[00:53:18] Speaker A: Interesting. Yeah.

My two parties for that section finding lock were.

One party was Celes, Setzer, Shadow, and Ghogo.

[00:53:29] Speaker B: Shadow. Yes. Shadow would have been.

[00:53:31] Speaker A: And then the other party was Mog, Sabin, Strago. Strago and Gau.

Gau was just always on my short list of whenever you have to choose a party, it’s almost always like, should I not take Gau and level up somebody else for once, or should I just take him and brush through things? He often ends up there anyway.

And then I also. You Know, I knew from all the conversations I had with NPCs before that this is where Locke was going to be. So I had to include Celes for obvious reasons. And then everyone else was in. In that in those two parties was just the lowest level party members I had because I wanted to.

I wanted to start leveling them up. Regrettably, I did leave Umaro in the dust. Cause I kind of just stopped using him.

And I really wanted to use such a unique, unusual party member, like a Yeti Moore, but he wasn’t really effective enough for my taste. I’m glad you got some use out of him though.

[00:54:28] Speaker B: Actually, now that I think about it, you just remind me because you said you had Shadow. I had Shadow. So it wouldn’t have been him. It would have been Shadow.

[00:54:33] Speaker A: It would have been Terra.

[00:54:35] Speaker B: It would have been Terra, Terra, Shadow, Cyan and Gal is what would have been one party. And then it would have been Celes, Edgar, Sabin and Mohg.

[00:54:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.

[00:54:49] Speaker B: Would have been my other.

[00:54:51] Speaker A: Do you use Shadow’s throw ability very often?

[00:54:56] Speaker B: Yeah, with shurikens? Yes, I do.

[00:54:58] Speaker A: Okay. Have you found the. Have you tried out the Fuma Shurikens yet?

[00:55:02] Speaker B: I have, yeah. I used them on a couple of the bigger bosses.

[00:55:06] Speaker A: Yeah. So he’s. I mean obviously there’s still single attack throw like Shurikens, but the. Some of the scrolls, the elemental scrolls are useful that hit all enemies.

[00:55:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I had a fire skull with him I used.

[00:55:20] Speaker A: But the. And you can buy them in some of the towns. So I went. I think that. I think Tamasa, the magic, all magic people town, which is now like this really tiny island in the bottom right corner of the map. They sell Fuma Shuriken. So I had enough cash to just like splurge and get like 50 of them. Because that’s the thing I’m using the most with him right now, rather than a standard attack.

Just an FYI in case you want to do a quick pit stop before we continue on.

And then, you know, as you enter into this, I gotta say, this must have been the coolest dungeon in my immediate memory of this game. It has the flavor of and was probably at least somewhat the inspiration for the water temple in Zelda Ocarina of Time with the flipping switches puzzle to drain the water which then hardens the lava that lets you cross to the other area, which it’s starting to realize, or dawn on me that there’s a lot of kind of echoes of this game in Ocarina of Time, whether purposefully or Not. It’s just kind of an interesting coincidence.

Yeah, they definitely are two great games though. And the enemies here were tough, but I found them to be pretty fun overall and kind of like a nice even matchup. Except for the face, the floating giant head.

[00:56:40] Speaker B: Those things were.

[00:56:41] Speaker A: Yeah, they just wallowed me over and over when it showed up and just like legit just kept crushing me. But I, I, as I kept running into them, I was just trying out literally random rages that I hadn’t, hadn’t used yet. So every time I came up against one, I just kept picking one at random from the list and seeing if it would do anything. And there’s an. A rage called Rafflesia, which I don’t know if that’s one that you’ve seen. I think it was a, some like flower looking enemy at some point.

So Rafflesia’s rage, it basically casts a type of charm or confuse type status effect that’s called Entice.

[00:57:20] Speaker B: Oh, okay.

[00:57:21] Speaker A: Which just kind of broke me loose from the cycle of dying to the face, since basically what it does, it makes them attack their own team or themselves and it doesn’t wear off no matter what.

[00:57:33] Speaker B: Ooh.

[00:57:34] Speaker A: Okay, so like confused. If you attack someone with a physical attack, maybe a magic attack too, if they have confused status. If you do any damage to them, it breaks them out of confuse and they’re no longer attacking people. Entice. They’ll just go until they kill themselves.

[00:57:50] Speaker B: Nice. Okay.

[00:57:51] Speaker A: Oh, I gotta be kind of game breaking. It’s a bit cheap if you think about it, but I endorse it in cases like this where someone’s really just giving me a run for my money and I don’t have any other solution for it.

[00:58:03] Speaker B: Okay, I gotta see if I have that one.

[00:58:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And actually, I believe as I was checking in every once in a while with the guide, I think if you. And you’re in the pixel remaster, I think there’s a bestiary in there that you can like go and scroll through and see if you’ve even run into that enemy or not and before wasting time in the veldt.

[00:58:24] Speaker B: Okay. Oh, yeah. All right, I will. Yeah, I might take a look at that.

Maybe I’ll go back. Yeah.

[00:58:31] Speaker A: So, I mean, cool dungeon. Nice design. A bit of like that semi environmental puzzle solving involved with the switches. This is where at least I ran into and beat the final of the eight dragons that I encountered while roaming around and putting my crew back together after I killed it. It said there were three dragons left, so I Guess I’ve done five, but I have no idea where those other three are. One is probably at the top of that damn cultist tower, but no, thanks, I don’t want to do that. And the other two I didn’t see anywhere, so who knows?

[00:59:06] Speaker B: Yeah. I wouldn’t be shocked. I.

I think I’ve killed.

[00:59:10] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:59:10] Speaker B: I think I’m at four or five of the dragons as well.

[00:59:13] Speaker A: Yeah.

[00:59:14] Speaker B: But again, it was just more of ones that were in.

[00:59:17] Speaker A: Ones that were in our exploring.

[00:59:19] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:59:20] Speaker A: It was not an explicit goal that I set myself to go and get all the eight dragons, so I’m okay with it. Now, by comparison, the three gigantic dragons and Zelda, Breath of the Wild, I farmed those guys like crazy for whatever it is that they dropped. And I’ve now forgotten, but that was pretty entertaining. It was fun to just see a dragon floating across the sky.

[00:59:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Wow.

[00:59:46] Speaker A: I was like, remember those guys?

[00:59:47] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:59:47] Speaker A: There’s a fire one, a nice one, and a lightning one. And a split second I was like,

[00:59:52] Speaker B: what are you talking about? And then. Yes. Yes.

[00:59:53] Speaker A: Yeah. I remember if you try to land on them, you just, like, get completely destroyed because they’re elementary kind of kills you, basically, and you go falling out of the sky.

But I think they give you. I don’t know if it was. If you shoot them, they give you like. Like a piece of star or a piece of dragon scale. Goes flying into the distance.

Honestly, I really don’t remember. It was a couple years ago I played Breath of the Wild.

[01:00:19] Speaker B: Yeah.

[01:00:20] Speaker A: But it was totally worth it.

[01:00:22] Speaker B: No, it was totally worth it.

That’s a great game.

[01:00:26] Speaker A: And. Yeah, so after the.

You know, I guess I realizing now we were. This is an episode about Final Fantasy 6, but we’re talking about Zelda over and over again.

[01:00:36] Speaker B: I know, I know. Well, there’s some similarities.

[01:00:38] Speaker A: Funny how it goes. So after the dragon, you finally find Locke and Celes had a touching reunion with Locke, as expected. Or was it touching? Locke finally found his legendary treasure that undoes death, and so he’s still dead set on using the Phoenix Magicite here to bring Rachel back from the dead, his old girlfriend.

[01:00:59] Speaker B: Yes.

[01:00:59] Speaker A: I don’t know how touching that would be if you were Celes watching it all happen.

Yeah. You know, you don’t really get an immediate sense of. Says it’s to restore his honor. But is it that or is he just wants to get back together with her and Celest be damned. But once you get to the house there in Kalingin, the Phoenix does indeed revive Rachel but only long enough to let her have a final conversation with Locke.

[01:01:26] Speaker B: And.

[01:01:27] Speaker A: And at this point, you know, it’s somewhat predictable, but she gives her blessing for Locke to give his all into his new love. Lucky Celes.

After you just saw him go after the old one. Okay, now I guess I can be with you.

[01:01:40] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I got permission.

[01:01:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s what his whole mission was. I just want permission to be able to do it and move on.

And yeah, after finally finding Locke, I was kind of just ready to go finish this thing and take out Kefka. I mean, you couldn’t say it better than Locke. I think we’ve been keeping Kefka waiting too long, is what he says. Or waiting long enough.

[01:02:05] Speaker B: Yes.

[01:02:06] Speaker A: So I from there went and did my final prep, which was just putting the Valigarmonda, Alexander, Odin, Bahamut, and Ragnarok Aspers onto the four power mages, Terra Selah, Strago, and Relm.

[01:02:21] Speaker B: Okay.

[01:02:22] Speaker A: And rotating through them so they could all learn the elemental Agas.

[01:02:25] Speaker B: Right.

[01:02:26] Speaker A: As well as Holy Meteor Flare and Ultimatum Ultima, respectively. Because I know how powerful they are both in other final fantasies and here.

And then I just did the bit of grinding in that dinosaur forest to level everyone up to at least 40 minimum and decided to call it a day.

[01:02:42] Speaker B: Oh, you went to the dinosaur forest?

[01:02:44] Speaker A: Did you go in there?

[01:02:45] Speaker B: No, I read about it, but I didn’t go in there.

[01:02:48] Speaker A: Those dinosaurs are no joke.

Yeah, I was absolutely demolished every single time I saw the brachiosaur enemy. Until someone in my party finally learned Ultima and I used that, combined with other people using flare and then finally won those brachiosaur. I mean, they basically just like within.

Within one round of my turns while I was still choosing my attacks, they would launch off like two or three things that would kill two people and then an ultima attack and kill the rest. Oh, jeez. So I just get wiped. The Tyrannosaur is the other enemy in this forest and they regularly killed me too, because they were able to use meteor.

But regardless of dying, to them it seemed to be the kind of the best place for me to get quickly get xp. But man, grinding is a slog. You know, I. I love turn based JRPG combat and they did it so well here overall.

But I find I’m not here or in any JRPG just for the combat. You know, I want the story, I want the exploration. So it’s not just to literally go and do combat ad nauseam. It kind of grinds My gears. So anyway, I just did the dinosaur forest to quickly level up 40ish.

Everyone ended up kind of like in between 40 and 45, I guess.

So I guess I’m okay with it now that it’s in the past.

[01:04:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I’ll say this. I mean I’ve been playing on the Pixel remaster and I will say for the nice thing that they added is.

And I don’t care if some people may think it’s a cheat or whatever, but I don’t have as much time to play with full time job and everything. So I went in and went into boost and boosted my XP up to.

I don’t even know. I think I might have done two times or maybe even four times just to get some of these characters up to. I think they’re up to 45 is where I want them. And then. And then I got to there and then I’m done grinding and yeah, now I’ve turned it back down. But I was like, I don’t have the time to just.

[01:05:01] Speaker A: That makes sense. I mean it’s honestly like this is supposed to be fun. If it stops being fun, then take the quality of life option that you’ve been given by the remastered developers. Like they’re.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.

[01:05:14] Speaker B: No.

[01:05:15] Speaker A: And I. I chose 40 kind of as a goal level for the final dungeon really arbitrarily.

Since at the time that I made the decision everyone was in their low to mid-30s and 40 was just the next big bump in numbers I imagined would be sufficient for the final dungeon.

Who knows?

[01:05:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I had some grinding before. I think everyone for me was like mid to high 30s.

So I was like, I’ll try and get them to. And then I think maybe one or two might have been over 40 just because I’d used them more.

So I was like, you know what, I’ll just try and get them.

There are 14 total we have. And I have 12 to 45 and then two of them I didn’t even touch. And they’re like mid to low 30s.

[01:05:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You know, maybe I’m super overpowered. Maybe I’m really underpowered and I don’t get crushed immediately. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

[01:06:07] Speaker B: Yeah, well, wait and see.

[01:06:10] Speaker A: Anything here that we didn’t bring up already that you saw or did?

[01:06:14] Speaker B: I don’t think so. I’m looking through one little thing. Not of what we’ve seen did, but I just. For shadow, for me, you say you do the shurikens a lot I have. I forgot what weapon it is of the weapon I put on him there gives me an opportunity of when I strike somebody, it being like basically critical and a one hit kill.

Yeah.

[01:06:36] Speaker A: So there are regular attack then. Yep.

[01:06:38] Speaker B: I use regular attack because it does a lot of damage regularly either way. But then there’s a chance of it like it goes like. It basically makes like a ping noise and the enemy just disappears and they die. Because it’s a one hit kill, man. Good for you. Yeah, it’s actually. It’s a pretty good knife. I forgot what it’s called, but it’s. Yeah, I also find out what that a lot.

[01:06:58] Speaker A: If you find out what it’s called, throw it in Discord. Because I may or may not already have it and want to equip it.

[01:07:03] Speaker B: I think I have something similar on lock as well.

[01:07:07] Speaker A: Sweet.

[01:07:08] Speaker B: Yeah, I’ll look them up and I’ll throw them in Discord.

Otherwise. Yeah, no, I’m just looking through Guy quickly. I don’t think there was much else I did extra.

[01:07:20] Speaker A: Yeah.

[01:07:20] Speaker B: On top of all that we haven’t talked about.

[01:07:23] Speaker A: Well, so I guess this then becomes a question for anyone listening. Since both Alex and I are mentally ready to go into the Kafka Tower, but haven’t actually entered yet. If we still have time, if there’s anything that sounds like something that you would definitely recommend that we do, but we haven’t done yet in the open world, let us know. On Discord.

Absolutely curious to see like what did we miss that might actually be a game changer or worth our time?

[01:07:52] Speaker B: Yeah, the only one I’ve definitely not. I’m not doing the Cultist Tower.

[01:07:57] Speaker A: No matter. I won’t be doing that either, to be honest.

[01:07:59] Speaker B: That one is. That’s a no for me. But if anything else, don’t need to

[01:08:02] Speaker A: do two towers in a row.

[01:08:03] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So.

[01:08:06] Speaker A: But anything else. Yeah, let us know. Well, for next time, no need to keep this vague anymore. Our goal is to fight your way through Kefka’s tower until you beat the game.

You know, now that I think about it, throughout the entire world of ruin, half of the game we haven’t seen Kefka even once.

[01:08:24] Speaker B: No, we haven’t. Yeah, you’re right.

[01:08:26] Speaker A: He was just kind of an ever present character and part of the world of balance. So it’s like a really interesting shift tonally. Like it makes everything darker. But then you don’t even see him. So his like comic relief segment of his personality isn’t showing it all here. I mean, I suppose in his godly state, in his practically literal ivory tower, he doesn’t need to be making any appearances.

And after being so in your face in that first half of the game, he’s much more like Sauron being that ever present evil presence off in the distance.

I think I can only assume he’s the final boss of the game. If anyone else is the final boss. It would be a massive twist.

[01:09:10] Speaker B: Yeah, it definitely would be.

[01:09:12] Speaker A: But I’m ready to take him out. Let’s go finish it.

[01:09:15] Speaker B: Yes, definitely looking. I’d say I’m looking forward to finishing it, but I have really enjoyed the game a lot. So so far it’s.

[01:09:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I want to see how it all. How it all wraps up.

[01:09:26] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely.

All right, well, thank you everybody for listening and we look forward to talking to you next time about the end of the game and seeing also how you guys felt with the whole end of the game and how it went for you.

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