Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I wouldn't stop for AP grinding here though - the best place for grinding class levels is just coming up relatively soon.
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
To go meta for a moment, it's genuinely impressive how much depth of discussion there is to be had regarding FFV's job mechanics between a novice and veteran players. Like, all four previous games put together don't get close to the depths brought in by the combinatorial job system.
Yeah, I'd say FFV is the first time the series really stretched these things mechanically to the point that there's a lot to discuss. FFI is just whatever classes you picked at the start (and if you really want to optimize them there's low-level running to job promotion for better stat gains), FFII's system is... kind of a mess. FFIII has a lot of direct upgrade jobs + the only stat that depends on levelups is HP + no crossover between jobs like this, so the closest thing to optimization is "swap to Knight/Viking when about to level up for optimal HP gains", FFIV has 100% pre-determined character stats and levelups until iirc level 70 (which you probably won't reach in non-remakes).
FFV just goes hard by going "hey, what if you could train in a bunch of different jobs and cross those skills between jobs to make your own fun combos (I've been playing Faris as a Paladin all game by sticking her in frontline physical classes but with a trained White Magic skill), or even breaking the game wide open with the right combos.
So actually just double checked Spellblade is absurdly good with Red Mage as it's the only skill that increases strength when equipped, +14 at Spellblade 6. Magic only reaches above freelancer base at Spellblade 6 but will at least reduce say Knights Int penalty.
In a way, all FFV did was open up III's job system and put in the thoughtful encounter design and polish from IV. It's not quite as polished as IV's, granted, since it's an open game with breaking points compared to a game where you are on rails almost all the time and the devs know where you'll be power-wise at all times. But for me, that's good enough for me to consider it the best FF ever made.
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FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
So, out of morbid curiosity regarding just how bad could it be to tackle the sandworm with three characters relying on RNG for landing hits it turns out the answser is...it's not that bad, surprisingly.
Party comp was Dblhand Berserker w/ Death Sickle, WM with !Gaia secondary, Time Mage with !Gaia secondary, and Ranger with Counter (completely worthless, as it turns out. Not that I had anything better on that character).
Here's the deal: RNG was annoying but not lethal. Berserk and Gaia was constantly triggering retaliation, but those were all gravity based which meant they could never kill me outright and the only other attack (sandstorm) did like 75 tops. Completely survivable. So the Ranger was plinking away at like 350 a pop while the RNG classes provoked counterattacks until the Berserker finally connected with a hit doing 1700 damage and that was it.
Party comp was Dblhand Berserker w/ Death Sickle, WM with !Gaia secondary, Time Mage with !Gaia secondary, and Ranger with Counter (completely worthless, as it turns out. Not that I had anything better on that character).
Here's the deal: RNG was annoying but not lethal. Berserk and Gaia was constantly triggering retaliation, but those were all gravity based which meant they could never kill me outright and the only other attack (sandstorm) did like 75 tops. Completely survivable. So the Ranger was plinking away at like 350 a pop while the RNG classes provoked counterattacks until the Berserker finally connected with a hit doing 1700 damage and that was it.
It's true. It still seems kinda janky but it's interesting to see this prototype of the now classic 'SquareEnix RPG with classes'-package that I know from like Octopath or FF Tactics.
- Location
- Alberta
Incidentally, the PS1 version of this scene has a pretty good demonstration of why context is important in localization because in that version, the grave initially says "Stella, rests here..." (punctuation exactly as it is in the game) and after Bartz updates it it says"Here lies Drogan and beloved wife Stella." Which means Bartz somehow erases the original engraving and writes a new one right in front of Faris.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
and yet stonecutter isn't even a real job you can use in the game
- Location
- Nunya, Arizona
Oh, sure it is, you just have to walk three times widdershins around the town and then dig up stella's grave with boko's foot you got by backtracking to the pirate cave. You'll have to fight through a little minidungeon and eventually re-murder Bartz's mom, but that'll get you the stonecutter job.
Connelly
As useless as a penguin with mittens
- Location
- Salamanca, Spain
It says something that even those games using simpler systems can have quite a bit of depth to their mechanics. Even with its code being an hilarious bug hive, Esper assignment in FFVI can lead to decent amount of potential game breaking personalization if you care to go about it ("lol I've built Sabin's magic and now he's destroying the game with Blitzs"), and FFIX rewards smart use and constant reorganization of both gear and the Magic Stone system.
Ah, that must be the true inspiration for the Palace of the Dead in FFXIV, I see.
- Location
- Nunya, Arizona
... really, if someone went and took several of those old "secrets" FAQs and mashed that nonsense into an actual game, it... would be interesting to watch. Probably not play, but watch, sure. Sorta' like a masocore JRPG or somethin', except not so much due to the combat as the wildly convoluted means of progression. Sadly not particularly relevant to FF playthroughs, though... even at their most complex and obscure they never really approached how out there that nonsense would get.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Undertale and Deltarune seem to be approaching it, particularly Deltarune Chapter 2's very, very "playground rumor" feeling secret route.
- Location
- Not your place of residence
For other modern examples, I'd put up the Keeper and what Edmund was trying to do with the Lost from Binding of Isaac.
Final Fantasy V, Part 10, Part A
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
With Galuf having left for his own planet, we are left in the airship with a hole in our party and no obvious leads. However, the game is quick to offer a solution: while we can fly around as much as you like, the moment we try to land anywhere, the game plays out a new cutscene.
Lenna and Faris have decided that they can't let their father go unavenged, and that they can't leave Galuf to fight Exdeath alone. Bartz is quick to agree and declare that Galuf is "one of us," and the group collectively decides that they have to do something. But with the meteorites depowered and no other idea, what to do? Their suggestion is exactly what I was about to do anyway: go check on Cid and see if he has any ideas.
That uncertainty didn't last very long, but I appreciate the story not leaving us completely stranded, even if the next step was fairly obvious.
First off though, let's check out Tycoon, since it's probably goodbye from Lenna to her people.
Lenna says that while her father is dead, others still need our help, and the Chancellor agrees and says the people of Tycoon will protect the kingdom in her absence.
You know, it's kind of understated, but from the dude with the canal keys to this scene, Lenna's character arc has mostly been about other people's reaction to her, specifically either worrying about her safety or thinking she is too important to go out adventuring, and her resolve to help others swaying them to let her be a hero, which is pretty interesting in the context of her being a female character; others want to preserve her, to keep her safe, and she's fighting for her right to risk her own life for the sake of saving others, the same way Bartz and Galuf are allowed to by default, and the way Faris had to change her entire gender presentation to manage. It's subtle, but it's there.
As usual, the Chancellor asks us to stay the night, and agreeing plays out another cutscene. The night-time rest-triggered cutscenes definitely stand out as FFV's one big innovation in storytelling; they're something FFIV could have really benefited from and which was sort of there in a larval form - there's the campfire scene with Tellah after rescuing Rydia, a couple of mandatory plot scenes that happen at night; I remember at the time hoping they'd do more like it, and I did get my wish… Just one full game later. FFIV's night-time scenes are nothing like all these optional scenes you get by visiting the right place at the right time and just… Going to bed. To an extent that's understandable; being "optional" is another way to describe "missable" and FFIV can't afford to have any of its main content skipped, so its optional scenes are stuff like visiting Edward during his recovery, which aren't too much of a big deal, but FFV is running more free with it. Specifically, these scenes are about the relationship between two characters, giving for instance Faris and Bartz or Faris and Lenna a chance to be alone and share something. You could potentially miss the entire Tycoon sideplot!
That night, it's Faris and Lenna who talk while in bed. Faris is lying wide awake and asks if Lenna is too, and Lenna asks her if something's wrong.
Faris having blurry memories so she's not herself sure she really was Lenna's sister at first is definitely an interesting wrinkle that recontextualizes her early behavior in the story; it's less that she knew Lenna was her sister all along and still kept her tied belowdeck to mess with her, and more that she suspected something and decided to go along with their adventure to try and pursue her own memory. In that way, she's kinda like Galuf! She should have spoken up, they'd have had something to bond over.
Being here in Castle Tycoon, though, is rousing her memory, and we're treated to a flashback of the adorable Child!Faris.
I like that she is studying white magic spells as a school subject. It's a nice touch.
Jenica, the nurse (whom you may remember as that old lady who first mentioned the name Sarisa to us), tells Sarisa that her lessons are done for that day and that her mother asked she put her sister Lenna to bed, then to come straight back, "no dawdling."
What plays out next is possibly the cutest scene in the game. Sarisa tells Lenna that tomorrow she'll join her father on a flight on their wind drake, to which Lenna (at this point a toddler) excitedly replies 'Papu, papuuu!' and Fairs tells her how excited she is and how flying high is supposed to be the best thing ever.
She fell asleep next to her little sister ;_;
Back in the present, Lenna tells Faris (she keeps hesitating between Faris and Sarisa, while the game makes the interesting meta decision to call her 'Sarisa' in flashbacks and 'Faris' in the present) that they should keep this a secret from the chancellor for now; if he learned the long-lost daughter of the king was alive, he'd "make a big fuss" and wouldn't let her leave the palace again, which intersects really interestingly with what I was just saying about Lenna's struggle to be allowed to be an adventuring hero as a gender-conforming woman and Faris's evasion of that same issue through being NGC.
This business concluded, the group wakes up and we head for the Catapult (the name of the underwater facility where the Ronkans worked on their airships; while a historical catapult is a siege weapon, in the specific context of Ronka I believe this is actually in reference to aircraft catapults, as seen on aircraft carriers). However, nobody's home!
Dangerous, uh? This is the first time adamantite is implied to be anything more than just a really strong metal. Hold on to that thought.
Naturally, if their goal is to 'return' the adamantite, they would have been headed towards the meteorite it came from back at the starting area of the game.
The fact that the black chocobo - whom we no longer need - still gets a presence in the plot thanks to Cid and Mid using it to move around the world is a very nice touch, although it does kind of bring into relief that we dropped Hiryu in the wilderness near Walse half a game ago and nobody's brought him up since. Poor thing.
Cid places the adamantite on the warp pad above, and a huge flash of light engulfs the room; when it dissipates, Cid notes that the floor is absorbing the energy from the adamantite. Lenna asks if they think the surge of energy was because the adamantite was recharging, which would mean they can travel to Galuf's world.
So the adamantite is like… a battery? Well, no, it doesn't store energy, it generates it over time, and it's the meteorite which that energy charges. And that energy is dangerous to humans…
IT'S PLUTONIUM AGAIN, GUYS, WE'RE DOING THINLY-VEILED NUCLEAR POWER AGAIN
I mean they're using it to power meteorites that they use to just crash into worlds, that just Makes Sense, you know?
Well, no. It took me a while, but I think I finally understand how the meteorite-warp system works. The people from Galuf's world don't literally ride meteorites at insane speed and somehow survive crashing into planets; the meteorite is a means of delivering a warp pad. They build a teleportation device in the hollow core of a large, sturdy rock, they fire off that rock at another planet, and once it's there, they can just teleport back and forth through it.
This is actually… pretty close to how some sci-fi settings in the "hardish soft" category handle the interaction between slower- and faster-than-light travel. It's how the Romans in The Expanse work, for instance; they can build FTL gates that can transport them instantly across space, but they have to be there to build it in the first place, so they launch meteorites loaded with portal-building tech at other solar systems; the trip takes several million years, but the Romans didn't really experience time the way we understand it, and once there the asteroid builds the gate, and the aliens can now go back and forth through it at instant speed.
Anyway, the -ids tell us a single piece of adamantite doesn't yet have enough power to warp us to Galuf's world, so we will need to go visit all the meteorites that have fallen so far in order to collect their adamantite… and each one is going to have a surprise of its own for us.
First, we approach the Walse Meteorite, and before Cid and Mid can collect its adamantite, we are attacked!
I hate this fight. I hate this fight so much. I went to look it up on the Wiki afterwards to see what obvious strategy I was missing, and there's NOTHING. It's just the intended design. What intended design, you ask?
Okay, so each 'Purobolos' is basically a non-elemental Bomb; it can use a normal attack, a Critical Attack, and a Self-Destruct move which kills it and inflicts its HP in damage to a single character, maximum 1500, which is a one-hit kill on anyone. But, and here is the thing, if you kill a Purobolos, its dying move is to use 'Arise,' which resurrects all currently-KO Purobolos at full health. That's right! When you kill one of them, it respawns the entire encounter minus itself! But when you kill another, it respawns the entire encounter minus itself, including the one who'd already died. This happens over, and over, and over…
Summons get around this issue, but 1) Galuf was my summoner so I don't have any right now, 2) Purobulos responds to any summons that fails to kill it by casting Curaga on itself and healing to full health.
The only way out is through. You have to kill every Purobulos until they run out of MP to cast Arise, popping Raises and Phoenix Downs of your own as your own characters are killed by their Self-Destructs, and it takes forever. Genuinely the worst fight in the game so far.
The Karnak Meteorite is next, and is way easier and with a much cooler reward.
Titan is back!
He's a simple fight. With 2500 HP, he's not too hard to take down, but his Earthshaker move deals around 500 damage, over half the health of my entire party. Not too much of a problem… Except it automatically procs Earthshaker on death, resulting in the first case of mutual kill I've seen in the series:
It's a neat trick and it's fair. I was lazy and got a 'messy' win instead of treating the threat seriously and the game punished me for it. After reloading, my knowledge of the enemy's exact amount of HP makes it easy to heal everyone up before dealing what I know will be the final blow and get a 'clean' win even after its counterstrike.
Even if it was dicey for Lenna. The chief issue here is that I have yet to fully internalize she's no longer a Monk with HP +30% equipped.
Of course, defeating Titan gets us the Titan summon, our first lv 3 summon! Finally, we head to Krile's meteorite back near the Gohn ruins.
In that one, Cid and Mid are heading in first, and after a while the party starts worrying. They head in to find them in an -id family characteristic display of helplessness:
'Chimera Brain' is such a strange name. Why brain? It definitely looks like the whole entire chimera to me. That enemy name has been popping up before and it's never not confusing to me. My attempt at stealing it gets us a Dragon Fang, which is apparently a valuable Chemist item, so if I ever use that job that'll be cool!
The chimera has a variety of elemental breath attacks that hit the whole party for moderate damage and no otherwise notable feature and is quickly dispatched, freeing Cid and Mid from their bonds.
The portal won't exist for very long, so as warned by Galuf, this is likely a one-way trip. Bartz asks the girls if they're sure about this, but Lenna says that this is more important, and Faris that they're in to the bitter end. Lenna says a farewell to the chancellor, the closest she has to a living relative beyond Faris, before jumping into the stream. Faris says goodbye to her crew, "I know you can handle all the looting and pillaging for me," which actually I'm not sure they can, I'm not sure they actually do any pirate things, you know? And Bartz says goodbye to, who else, his chocobo Boko.
In a rush of energy, the three protagonists rise into the sky and blink away. We get a plunging view of an island in the middle of an alien ocean:
The group is at first rendered unconscious by the experience, and slowly wake up.
That hue of grass… It's subtly different from any we've seen before on Bartz's homeworld. Not so different as to register as wholly alien, but a little more tinted towards blue. And the overworld tile we're in, with its dark hue signaling some kind of swamp, is not one that existed on our previous world.
The mountains of this world are subtly different; forests, deserts and plains still look the same, but the dark swamps and grey, blocky mountains clearly mark this as a different place from what we've known so far. No hint yet as to what kind of cities or nations this world is home to, but if you look in the south, two continents are connected by what is very obviously an artificial construct, likely some kind of bridge, which in turn leads to a circular mountain range with some kind of artificial construct at the center.
There's just one tiny problem:
We're stuck on a desert island in the middle of the ocean.
There's no way out. We don't have a ship or anything, and we didn't take the black chocobo with us, which would have been a pretty handy way of sidestepping that issue. No, instead we walk around the island until we enter that forest at the north, which triggers a cutscene.
Faris asks Lenna why, back on North Mountain, she risked her life to save Hiryu, the wind drake. Lenna asks if Faris remembers their mother, and Faris says 'a little.' Lenna says that every time she sees Hiryu, she's reminded of her mother. Faris asks why - and before Lenna can answer, they are interrupted.
Unfortunately, 'looking out' is of little help. Two of the monsters carry Faris and Lenna away, and before Bartz can follow, a third one comes after him.
The Abductor is not a difficult fight by any means. Unfortunately, Bartz is not the smartest tool in the shed; the monster drops a chest upon dying, and Bartz immediately opens it, which…
Bartz is promptly knocked unconscious by the gas, and everyone wakes up together in… THE DUNGEONS.
Oh my god, he's literally holding us captive and coming to our cell to gloat. We're in saturday morning cartoon villain territory right here.
A monster arrives to warn Exdeath that "Galuf and his cohorts have made it to Big Bridge." Which I suppose answers a question I had - how are Galuf and Krile supposed to stop Exdeath on their own? Well, the answer turns out to be that they aren't on their own, as has been alluded to before - Galuf is a leader of men with loyal soldiers (and werewolves).
Also the reference to 'Big Bridge' indicates we're due another Final Fantasy staple coming soon.
Exdeath declares our arrival is fortuitous, and he's going to use us to deter Galuf's attack; he orders that the 'giant mirror' be brought to him.
He has a giant hologram machine which he uses to threaten our friends by gloating over holding us hostage? Incredible. What a guy. I see that the writers decided to jettison 'character depth' as unnecessary weight and to replace them with four-color supervillain clichés, and Exdeath is living it.
Cut for image count.
Lenna and Faris have decided that they can't let their father go unavenged, and that they can't leave Galuf to fight Exdeath alone. Bartz is quick to agree and declare that Galuf is "one of us," and the group collectively decides that they have to do something. But with the meteorites depowered and no other idea, what to do? Their suggestion is exactly what I was about to do anyway: go check on Cid and see if he has any ideas.
That uncertainty didn't last very long, but I appreciate the story not leaving us completely stranded, even if the next step was fairly obvious.
First off though, let's check out Tycoon, since it's probably goodbye from Lenna to her people.
Lenna says that while her father is dead, others still need our help, and the Chancellor agrees and says the people of Tycoon will protect the kingdom in her absence.
You know, it's kind of understated, but from the dude with the canal keys to this scene, Lenna's character arc has mostly been about other people's reaction to her, specifically either worrying about her safety or thinking she is too important to go out adventuring, and her resolve to help others swaying them to let her be a hero, which is pretty interesting in the context of her being a female character; others want to preserve her, to keep her safe, and she's fighting for her right to risk her own life for the sake of saving others, the same way Bartz and Galuf are allowed to by default, and the way Faris had to change her entire gender presentation to manage. It's subtle, but it's there.
As usual, the Chancellor asks us to stay the night, and agreeing plays out another cutscene. The night-time rest-triggered cutscenes definitely stand out as FFV's one big innovation in storytelling; they're something FFIV could have really benefited from and which was sort of there in a larval form - there's the campfire scene with Tellah after rescuing Rydia, a couple of mandatory plot scenes that happen at night; I remember at the time hoping they'd do more like it, and I did get my wish… Just one full game later. FFIV's night-time scenes are nothing like all these optional scenes you get by visiting the right place at the right time and just… Going to bed. To an extent that's understandable; being "optional" is another way to describe "missable" and FFIV can't afford to have any of its main content skipped, so its optional scenes are stuff like visiting Edward during his recovery, which aren't too much of a big deal, but FFV is running more free with it. Specifically, these scenes are about the relationship between two characters, giving for instance Faris and Bartz or Faris and Lenna a chance to be alone and share something. You could potentially miss the entire Tycoon sideplot!
That night, it's Faris and Lenna who talk while in bed. Faris is lying wide awake and asks if Lenna is too, and Lenna asks her if something's wrong.
Faris having blurry memories so she's not herself sure she really was Lenna's sister at first is definitely an interesting wrinkle that recontextualizes her early behavior in the story; it's less that she knew Lenna was her sister all along and still kept her tied belowdeck to mess with her, and more that she suspected something and decided to go along with their adventure to try and pursue her own memory. In that way, she's kinda like Galuf! She should have spoken up, they'd have had something to bond over.
Being here in Castle Tycoon, though, is rousing her memory, and we're treated to a flashback of the adorable Child!Faris.
I like that she is studying white magic spells as a school subject. It's a nice touch.
Jenica, the nurse (whom you may remember as that old lady who first mentioned the name Sarisa to us), tells Sarisa that her lessons are done for that day and that her mother asked she put her sister Lenna to bed, then to come straight back, "no dawdling."
What plays out next is possibly the cutest scene in the game. Sarisa tells Lenna that tomorrow she'll join her father on a flight on their wind drake, to which Lenna (at this point a toddler) excitedly replies 'Papu, papuuu!' and Fairs tells her how excited she is and how flying high is supposed to be the best thing ever.
She fell asleep next to her little sister ;_;
Back in the present, Lenna tells Faris (she keeps hesitating between Faris and Sarisa, while the game makes the interesting meta decision to call her 'Sarisa' in flashbacks and 'Faris' in the present) that they should keep this a secret from the chancellor for now; if he learned the long-lost daughter of the king was alive, he'd "make a big fuss" and wouldn't let her leave the palace again, which intersects really interestingly with what I was just saying about Lenna's struggle to be allowed to be an adventuring hero as a gender-conforming woman and Faris's evasion of that same issue through being NGC.
This business concluded, the group wakes up and we head for the Catapult (the name of the underwater facility where the Ronkans worked on their airships; while a historical catapult is a siege weapon, in the specific context of Ronka I believe this is actually in reference to aircraft catapults, as seen on aircraft carriers). However, nobody's home!
Dangerous, uh? This is the first time adamantite is implied to be anything more than just a really strong metal. Hold on to that thought.
Naturally, if their goal is to 'return' the adamantite, they would have been headed towards the meteorite it came from back at the starting area of the game.
The fact that the black chocobo - whom we no longer need - still gets a presence in the plot thanks to Cid and Mid using it to move around the world is a very nice touch, although it does kind of bring into relief that we dropped Hiryu in the wilderness near Walse half a game ago and nobody's brought him up since. Poor thing.
Cid places the adamantite on the warp pad above, and a huge flash of light engulfs the room; when it dissipates, Cid notes that the floor is absorbing the energy from the adamantite. Lenna asks if they think the surge of energy was because the adamantite was recharging, which would mean they can travel to Galuf's world.
So the adamantite is like… a battery? Well, no, it doesn't store energy, it generates it over time, and it's the meteorite which that energy charges. And that energy is dangerous to humans…
IT'S PLUTONIUM AGAIN, GUYS, WE'RE DOING THINLY-VEILED NUCLEAR POWER AGAIN
I mean they're using it to power meteorites that they use to just crash into worlds, that just Makes Sense, you know?
Well, no. It took me a while, but I think I finally understand how the meteorite-warp system works. The people from Galuf's world don't literally ride meteorites at insane speed and somehow survive crashing into planets; the meteorite is a means of delivering a warp pad. They build a teleportation device in the hollow core of a large, sturdy rock, they fire off that rock at another planet, and once it's there, they can just teleport back and forth through it.
This is actually… pretty close to how some sci-fi settings in the "hardish soft" category handle the interaction between slower- and faster-than-light travel. It's how the Romans in The Expanse work, for instance; they can build FTL gates that can transport them instantly across space, but they have to be there to build it in the first place, so they launch meteorites loaded with portal-building tech at other solar systems; the trip takes several million years, but the Romans didn't really experience time the way we understand it, and once there the asteroid builds the gate, and the aliens can now go back and forth through it at instant speed.
Anyway, the -ids tell us a single piece of adamantite doesn't yet have enough power to warp us to Galuf's world, so we will need to go visit all the meteorites that have fallen so far in order to collect their adamantite… and each one is going to have a surprise of its own for us.
First, we approach the Walse Meteorite, and before Cid and Mid can collect its adamantite, we are attacked!
I hate this fight. I hate this fight so much. I went to look it up on the Wiki afterwards to see what obvious strategy I was missing, and there's NOTHING. It's just the intended design. What intended design, you ask?
Okay, so each 'Purobolos' is basically a non-elemental Bomb; it can use a normal attack, a Critical Attack, and a Self-Destruct move which kills it and inflicts its HP in damage to a single character, maximum 1500, which is a one-hit kill on anyone. But, and here is the thing, if you kill a Purobolos, its dying move is to use 'Arise,' which resurrects all currently-KO Purobolos at full health. That's right! When you kill one of them, it respawns the entire encounter minus itself! But when you kill another, it respawns the entire encounter minus itself, including the one who'd already died. This happens over, and over, and over…
Summons get around this issue, but 1) Galuf was my summoner so I don't have any right now, 2) Purobulos responds to any summons that fails to kill it by casting Curaga on itself and healing to full health.
The only way out is through. You have to kill every Purobulos until they run out of MP to cast Arise, popping Raises and Phoenix Downs of your own as your own characters are killed by their Self-Destructs, and it takes forever. Genuinely the worst fight in the game so far.
The Karnak Meteorite is next, and is way easier and with a much cooler reward.
Titan is back!
He's a simple fight. With 2500 HP, he's not too hard to take down, but his Earthshaker move deals around 500 damage, over half the health of my entire party. Not too much of a problem… Except it automatically procs Earthshaker on death, resulting in the first case of mutual kill I've seen in the series:
It's a neat trick and it's fair. I was lazy and got a 'messy' win instead of treating the threat seriously and the game punished me for it. After reloading, my knowledge of the enemy's exact amount of HP makes it easy to heal everyone up before dealing what I know will be the final blow and get a 'clean' win even after its counterstrike.
Even if it was dicey for Lenna. The chief issue here is that I have yet to fully internalize she's no longer a Monk with HP +30% equipped.
Of course, defeating Titan gets us the Titan summon, our first lv 3 summon! Finally, we head to Krile's meteorite back near the Gohn ruins.
In that one, Cid and Mid are heading in first, and after a while the party starts worrying. They head in to find them in an -id family characteristic display of helplessness:
'Chimera Brain' is such a strange name. Why brain? It definitely looks like the whole entire chimera to me. That enemy name has been popping up before and it's never not confusing to me. My attempt at stealing it gets us a Dragon Fang, which is apparently a valuable Chemist item, so if I ever use that job that'll be cool!
The chimera has a variety of elemental breath attacks that hit the whole party for moderate damage and no otherwise notable feature and is quickly dispatched, freeing Cid and Mid from their bonds.
The portal won't exist for very long, so as warned by Galuf, this is likely a one-way trip. Bartz asks the girls if they're sure about this, but Lenna says that this is more important, and Faris that they're in to the bitter end. Lenna says a farewell to the chancellor, the closest she has to a living relative beyond Faris, before jumping into the stream. Faris says goodbye to her crew, "I know you can handle all the looting and pillaging for me," which actually I'm not sure they can, I'm not sure they actually do any pirate things, you know? And Bartz says goodbye to, who else, his chocobo Boko.
In a rush of energy, the three protagonists rise into the sky and blink away. We get a plunging view of an island in the middle of an alien ocean:
The group is at first rendered unconscious by the experience, and slowly wake up.
That hue of grass… It's subtly different from any we've seen before on Bartz's homeworld. Not so different as to register as wholly alien, but a little more tinted towards blue. And the overworld tile we're in, with its dark hue signaling some kind of swamp, is not one that existed on our previous world.
The mountains of this world are subtly different; forests, deserts and plains still look the same, but the dark swamps and grey, blocky mountains clearly mark this as a different place from what we've known so far. No hint yet as to what kind of cities or nations this world is home to, but if you look in the south, two continents are connected by what is very obviously an artificial construct, likely some kind of bridge, which in turn leads to a circular mountain range with some kind of artificial construct at the center.
There's just one tiny problem:
We're stuck on a desert island in the middle of the ocean.
There's no way out. We don't have a ship or anything, and we didn't take the black chocobo with us, which would have been a pretty handy way of sidestepping that issue. No, instead we walk around the island until we enter that forest at the north, which triggers a cutscene.
Faris asks Lenna why, back on North Mountain, she risked her life to save Hiryu, the wind drake. Lenna asks if Faris remembers their mother, and Faris says 'a little.' Lenna says that every time she sees Hiryu, she's reminded of her mother. Faris asks why - and before Lenna can answer, they are interrupted.
Unfortunately, 'looking out' is of little help. Two of the monsters carry Faris and Lenna away, and before Bartz can follow, a third one comes after him.
The Abductor is not a difficult fight by any means. Unfortunately, Bartz is not the smartest tool in the shed; the monster drops a chest upon dying, and Bartz immediately opens it, which…
Bartz is promptly knocked unconscious by the gas, and everyone wakes up together in… THE DUNGEONS.
Oh my god, he's literally holding us captive and coming to our cell to gloat. We're in saturday morning cartoon villain territory right here.
A monster arrives to warn Exdeath that "Galuf and his cohorts have made it to Big Bridge." Which I suppose answers a question I had - how are Galuf and Krile supposed to stop Exdeath on their own? Well, the answer turns out to be that they aren't on their own, as has been alluded to before - Galuf is a leader of men with loyal soldiers (and werewolves).
Also the reference to 'Big Bridge' indicates we're due another Final Fantasy staple coming soon.
Exdeath declares our arrival is fortuitous, and he's going to use us to deter Galuf's attack; he orders that the 'giant mirror' be brought to him.
He has a giant hologram machine which he uses to threaten our friends by gloating over holding us hostage? Incredible. What a guy. I see that the writers decided to jettison 'character depth' as unnecessary weight and to replace them with four-color supervillain clichés, and Exdeath is living it.
Cut for image count.
Final Fantasy V, Part 10, Part B
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Galuf orders his men to fall back, and Exdeath summons one of his minions to keep watch on the adventurer party while he goes off to do… something or other. That doesn't matter. What matters is who he's summoning, because it's time for THE MAN. THE MYTH. THE LEGEND.
GIIIIIILGAMEEEEESH
Gilgamesh is another one of these Final Fantasy recurring characters. He… generally leans towards the comedic, I think? At least in FFXIV, he is basically a pure joke character. I kind of love him. He's an extravagant braggart and coward who just loves swords. I don't know how seriously FFV is going to treat him, but I'm excited to find out.
Bartz rushes up to the bar of his cell to swear at Exdeath and the warlock, who seems to consider villainous gloating to be a one-sided affair requiring no input from the other participants, blasts him clean across the room with a bolt of lightning, then leaves the room without dignifying with so much as a word.
Back on the bridge, though, Galuf is not going to simply take all this lying down and back away leaving his friends in Exdeath's clutches; once his men have retreated to the far side of the Big Bridge (which can only be this monumental bridge we saw on the map), he asks Krile to borrow a wind drake that she apparently just has as a pet, and heads out to personally sneak into Castle Exdeath and save the party.
Oh, I see what the game is doing. We just got a whole sequence with a three-member party, so now we're getting a sequence with Galuf alone, which works to sorta-kinda balance out the disparity of experience from the party getting split. That's clever, ish, even if it doesn't really balance out in real numbers. "Galuf sneaks into the castle alone" is a great bit, though.
We do bump into some random encounters, but with Galuf having access to both Summons and White Magic, they're fairly trivial. At the end of the path, however, we find the very man tasked with guarding our friends!
He does look pretty cool. Unfortunately for him, despite being worlds away when I acquired him, Galuf does have access to Titan.
At 1,000 damage a pop, this is my strongest available attack that's not a Spellblade/Two-Handed buffed attack.
Oh my god.
This is Gilgamesh alright. He's not just a massive coward who folds the moment he faces any pushback; he's also the kind of character who finds a way to frame every setback as a victory, him being magnanimous, him 'allowing' his opponent to 'get away with' something…
It's an old archetype; he's Miles Gloriosus/Il Capitaoe/Matamore, an old theatre archetype dating back to Roman theatre, and particularly notable in Italian Commedia dell'arte and French theatre of the Enlightenment, a boastful character who is constantly angling to show how his failures were actually acts of bravery or cunning.
Le Capitan, a Commedia dell'arte archetype; you can see how he's modeled after soldiers of the time, but extravagant and buffonish.
Of course, a risk you always run with these characters is making them look so cool that you actually kind of forget that they're supposed to be losers. For instance, check out Miles Gloriosus's intro in Something Funny Happened On The Way To The Forum, a ridiculously bombastic character with a killer song (who is, don't get me wrong, bragging about awful things, but this was originally an archetype meant to be obviously lying about it all in Plautus, whereas here he comes across as absolutely capable of backing up his words):
Or, if you'll forgive me the tangent and on the off-chance you speak French, these absolutely killer lines by Matamore in Corneille:
(Which translates roughly to "I shall give you a choice out of three or four deaths; I shall with one blow shatter you like glass, or bury you alive at the center of the earth, or cut you in ten parts with a single backhand, or throw you so high above the very lightning, that you will be devoured by the elemental fires. Choose then quickly, and set your affairs in order." But, like, it sounds way cooler in French.)
Anyway. Where were we?
Right, escaping the dungeons.
Galuf tells them to sit tight and he'll "have them out in a jiffy," then opens the door - I assume Gilgamesh just dropped the key but honestly I like to imagine Galuf has some kind of secret past as a MASTER THIEF who learned lockpicking skills.
I like that we actually acknowledge that the group (apparently) screwed up and ruined Galuf's attack plans, and that they're apologetic about it, which would otherwise have been kind of a big complaint I would have about the scene. As we're about to see, things are more complicated in truth, but right now it's what it looks like. Galuf brushing it off with the promise of rubbing their ears later also does a lot to play in his dynamic of 'older figure who is their friend' - right now, what matters to him is getting his friends to safety.
Bartz noticing guards and Metal Gear Solid-ing his way across a corridor is just plain funny.
Escaping from Castle Exdeath proves surprisingly easy; most of the castle is locked off to us, so it's not really a true dungeon, there is only a short linear path to the outside and then we're home free… or nearly so; the wind drake went home, so we have to actually trek overland and cross the Big Bridge.
New wild encounter screen. Look at these misty marshes and these strange peaks in the distance. I am liking the vibe.
Okay those are just cute.
The monsters of Galuf's worlds are beefier than those back home, but that's not saying much. I'm still dealing with them relatively easily. That is, until I make the foolish mistake of randomly opening a door without breach and clear protocols, at which point my ass is duly punished by an ambush from THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND
Can you imagine the level of genius and tactical brilliance it takes to come up with something like that? I am absolutely hosed here.
See that? It says right there he has no weaknesses. Fuck. Why did I even level Mystic Knight? Worthless class.
Thankfully, after desperately summoning Titan and unleashing a barrage of attacks to try and stave off Gilgamesh's onslaught, it looks like I might have managed to pull off the hardest fight of this generation of gaming.
It's okay, Gil. I think we can part ways on this, as good friends.
See that? He's surrendering! This is going great!
FUCK. HE GOT ME. I TOTALLY FELL FOR HIS CUNNING PLOY. HOW COULD I BE SO STUPID AS TO LET HIM CAST MULTIPLE SELF-BUFFS WHILE PRETENDING TO SURRENDER? I WAS JUST TOO AFRAID OF LOSING AGAINST HIS INCREDIBLE BATTLE PROWESS AND LET MYSELF BE BLUFFED!
And now he has all these moves, like… Dragoon's Jump… Blue Magic spells… Panacea, which clears all negative status effects… Electrocute, which deals lightning damage…
Thank God he remembered he'd forgotten to iron his cat before he could start busting out his real attacks, or I might not have survived. And without Gilgamesh standing in our way, we are free to reach the end of the bridge.
The magical barrier awakens and bubbles out at impressive speed, knocking everyone out into the air faster than I can screenshot and blasting them off into the sky like Team Fucking Rocket.
Using an ostensibly defensive barrier as a nuke is pretty creative, I love to see it. Also, the visual effects for it look sick as hell. And likely this was Exdeath's plan all along - that's what he left to do; to use the barrier to try and catch and kill Galuf and his army. Thankfully, the group was far enough from the epicenter and in open space, so instead of getting squashed like bugs, or cast into the sea to drown, the group are 'merely' bounced off anime-style and relatively harmlessly onto some empty spot of land.
They even managed to stay together the whole way through. Team Rocket, I tell you.
Not much to do here but group up and head back to the nearest semblance of civilization, which would be the nearest town. Before heading out, though, Bartz turns to Galuf, once again extending his apologies, saying that they had meant to help him but ended up being the one in need of rescue. Galuf laughs it off, saying that it's just business as usual. 'Meddlesome bums, the lot of you," he says; but as Bartz joins with the others and Galuf stays behind for a moment…
They're his friends, after all.
Alright, this seems about as good a point as any to stop for today. Before we do, let's just open up the World Map to see where we can find civilization and how many places we're looking to be exploring on this planet:
Oh okay that barrier just threw us halfway across the globe, no biggie.
This was a lot of fun. This whole sequence had a good mix of emotional notes and comedy, of raising the stakes, expending our horizons with a whole new world…
It was a great time. Next time: I try to finally change jobs some!
GIIIIIILGAMEEEEESH
Gilgamesh is another one of these Final Fantasy recurring characters. He… generally leans towards the comedic, I think? At least in FFXIV, he is basically a pure joke character. I kind of love him. He's an extravagant braggart and coward who just loves swords. I don't know how seriously FFV is going to treat him, but I'm excited to find out.
Bartz rushes up to the bar of his cell to swear at Exdeath and the warlock, who seems to consider villainous gloating to be a one-sided affair requiring no input from the other participants, blasts him clean across the room with a bolt of lightning, then leaves the room without dignifying with so much as a word.
Back on the bridge, though, Galuf is not going to simply take all this lying down and back away leaving his friends in Exdeath's clutches; once his men have retreated to the far side of the Big Bridge (which can only be this monumental bridge we saw on the map), he asks Krile to borrow a wind drake that she apparently just has as a pet, and heads out to personally sneak into Castle Exdeath and save the party.
Oh, I see what the game is doing. We just got a whole sequence with a three-member party, so now we're getting a sequence with Galuf alone, which works to sorta-kinda balance out the disparity of experience from the party getting split. That's clever, ish, even if it doesn't really balance out in real numbers. "Galuf sneaks into the castle alone" is a great bit, though.
We do bump into some random encounters, but with Galuf having access to both Summons and White Magic, they're fairly trivial. At the end of the path, however, we find the very man tasked with guarding our friends!
He does look pretty cool. Unfortunately for him, despite being worlds away when I acquired him, Galuf does have access to Titan.
At 1,000 damage a pop, this is my strongest available attack that's not a Spellblade/Two-Handed buffed attack.
Oh my god.
This is Gilgamesh alright. He's not just a massive coward who folds the moment he faces any pushback; he's also the kind of character who finds a way to frame every setback as a victory, him being magnanimous, him 'allowing' his opponent to 'get away with' something…
It's an old archetype; he's Miles Gloriosus/Il Capitaoe/Matamore, an old theatre archetype dating back to Roman theatre, and particularly notable in Italian Commedia dell'arte and French theatre of the Enlightenment, a boastful character who is constantly angling to show how his failures were actually acts of bravery or cunning.
Le Capitan, a Commedia dell'arte archetype; you can see how he's modeled after soldiers of the time, but extravagant and buffonish.
Of course, a risk you always run with these characters is making them look so cool that you actually kind of forget that they're supposed to be losers. For instance, check out Miles Gloriosus's intro in Something Funny Happened On The Way To The Forum, a ridiculously bombastic character with a killer song (who is, don't get me wrong, bragging about awful things, but this was originally an archetype meant to be obviously lying about it all in Plautus, whereas here he comes across as absolutely capable of backing up his words):
Or, if you'll forgive me the tangent and on the off-chance you speak French, these absolutely killer lines by Matamore in Corneille:
Article: Matamore.
Je te donne le choix de trois ou quatre morts :
Je vais, d'un coup de poing, te briser comme verre,
Ou t'enfoncer tout vif au centre de la terre,
Ou te fendre en dix parts d'un seul coup de revers,
Ou te jeter si haut au-dessus des éclairs,
Que tu sois dévoré des feux élémentaires.
Choisis donc promptement, et pense à tes affaires.
(Which translates roughly to "I shall give you a choice out of three or four deaths; I shall with one blow shatter you like glass, or bury you alive at the center of the earth, or cut you in ten parts with a single backhand, or throw you so high above the very lightning, that you will be devoured by the elemental fires. Choose then quickly, and set your affairs in order." But, like, it sounds way cooler in French.)
Anyway. Where were we?
Right, escaping the dungeons.
Galuf tells them to sit tight and he'll "have them out in a jiffy," then opens the door - I assume Gilgamesh just dropped the key but honestly I like to imagine Galuf has some kind of secret past as a MASTER THIEF who learned lockpicking skills.
I like that we actually acknowledge that the group (apparently) screwed up and ruined Galuf's attack plans, and that they're apologetic about it, which would otherwise have been kind of a big complaint I would have about the scene. As we're about to see, things are more complicated in truth, but right now it's what it looks like. Galuf brushing it off with the promise of rubbing their ears later also does a lot to play in his dynamic of 'older figure who is their friend' - right now, what matters to him is getting his friends to safety.
Bartz noticing guards and Metal Gear Solid-ing his way across a corridor is just plain funny.
Escaping from Castle Exdeath proves surprisingly easy; most of the castle is locked off to us, so it's not really a true dungeon, there is only a short linear path to the outside and then we're home free… or nearly so; the wind drake went home, so we have to actually trek overland and cross the Big Bridge.
New wild encounter screen. Look at these misty marshes and these strange peaks in the distance. I am liking the vibe.
Okay those are just cute.
The monsters of Galuf's worlds are beefier than those back home, but that's not saying much. I'm still dealing with them relatively easily. That is, until I make the foolish mistake of randomly opening a door without breach and clear protocols, at which point my ass is duly punished by an ambush from THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND
Can you imagine the level of genius and tactical brilliance it takes to come up with something like that? I am absolutely hosed here.
See that? It says right there he has no weaknesses. Fuck. Why did I even level Mystic Knight? Worthless class.
Thankfully, after desperately summoning Titan and unleashing a barrage of attacks to try and stave off Gilgamesh's onslaught, it looks like I might have managed to pull off the hardest fight of this generation of gaming.
It's okay, Gil. I think we can part ways on this, as good friends.
See that? He's surrendering! This is going great!
FUCK. HE GOT ME. I TOTALLY FELL FOR HIS CUNNING PLOY. HOW COULD I BE SO STUPID AS TO LET HIM CAST MULTIPLE SELF-BUFFS WHILE PRETENDING TO SURRENDER? I WAS JUST TOO AFRAID OF LOSING AGAINST HIS INCREDIBLE BATTLE PROWESS AND LET MYSELF BE BLUFFED!
And now he has all these moves, like… Dragoon's Jump… Blue Magic spells… Panacea, which clears all negative status effects… Electrocute, which deals lightning damage…
Thank God he remembered he'd forgotten to iron his cat before he could start busting out his real attacks, or I might not have survived. And without Gilgamesh standing in our way, we are free to reach the end of the bridge.
The magical barrier awakens and bubbles out at impressive speed, knocking everyone out into the air faster than I can screenshot and blasting them off into the sky like Team Fucking Rocket.
Using an ostensibly defensive barrier as a nuke is pretty creative, I love to see it. Also, the visual effects for it look sick as hell. And likely this was Exdeath's plan all along - that's what he left to do; to use the barrier to try and catch and kill Galuf and his army. Thankfully, the group was far enough from the epicenter and in open space, so instead of getting squashed like bugs, or cast into the sea to drown, the group are 'merely' bounced off anime-style and relatively harmlessly onto some empty spot of land.
They even managed to stay together the whole way through. Team Rocket, I tell you.
Not much to do here but group up and head back to the nearest semblance of civilization, which would be the nearest town. Before heading out, though, Bartz turns to Galuf, once again extending his apologies, saying that they had meant to help him but ended up being the one in need of rescue. Galuf laughs it off, saying that it's just business as usual. 'Meddlesome bums, the lot of you," he says; but as Bartz joins with the others and Galuf stays behind for a moment…
They're his friends, after all.
Alright, this seems about as good a point as any to stop for today. Before we do, let's just open up the World Map to see where we can find civilization and how many places we're looking to be exploring on this planet:
Oh okay that barrier just threw us halfway across the globe, no biggie.
This was a lot of fun. This whole sequence had a good mix of emotional notes and comedy, of raising the stakes, expending our horizons with a whole new world…
It was a great time. Next time: I try to finally change jobs some!
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Mister Bad Guy
Mr Mercury to friends
- Location
- Bay Area
YOU HAVEN'T SEEN EVEN 10% OF HIS REAL POWER YET, OMICRON
Emy
Artificial Defender
An excellent question.
I think it makes sense, at this point, to go over our weapon attack options, so let's talk about Final Fantasy V's abilities that modify weapon attacks (aka why I'm not enthusiastic about Dragoon in this system). We can separate them into rough categories based on how they adjust your overall baseline from just hitting the "Attack" command with no ability equipped.
50% damage output:
Dragoon's !Jump (without a spear) - If your dragoon doesn't have a spear, something's gone very wrong. They need a weapon with double damage on !Jump to compensate for only attacking every other turn. Deals full damage from the back row.
100% damage output:
Monk's !Focus, Dragoon's !Jump (with a spear) - With both of these, you attack every other turn for double damage, meaning your effective damage output isn't increased or decreased. The Dragoon gets to spend that turn off the field but that only rarely matters. !Jump deals full damage from the back row.
Hunter's !Aim - Always hits, so it can be used for evasive enemies, but you probably have better options. Particularly if you've unlocked Rapidfire.
Dancer's !Dance (without Sword Dance equipment) - You have a 25% chance of Sword Dance for 4x damage, so overall there's no damage increase from that alone, but the other effects in the random selection do include a charm effect, HP drain, or MP drain, which nets you a bit of control and a minor damage increase that isn't enough to move !Dance from this category. Deals full damage from the back row.
150% damage output:
Berserker's Berserk - This is a damage increase, but it comes at the cost of not getting to play the game with that character. I'm not a fan.
200% damage output:
Knight's Double Grip, Ninja's Dual Wield - Both of these sacrifice a shield (which can matter—shields are good in FFV) to double damage output. However, there's a key difference for building a strong physical combo attacker: Dual Wield is an inherent ability, meaning Freelancer gets it if Ninja is mastered, whereas Double Grip costs an ability slot to be equipped.
Dancer's !Dance (with Sword Dance equipment) - You're basically sacrificing some turn-by-turn consistency to deal quad damage half the time. The other half the time you drain some MP or HP from the enemy. Deals full damage from the back row.
Hunter !Rapidfire - Hits 4 times for half damage each, ignoring defense and always hitting. In this case instead of sacrificing turn consistency, you're sacrificing targeting, in order to do double damage overall.
Special damage output:
Mystic Knight's !Spellblade - The overall damage increase of this depends on two things: whether they have an elemental weakness (you don't get the damage multiplier without it on elemental spells, though non-elemental spells can give you a damage increase) and how long the battle goes (there's a setup turn, but unlike !Focus or !Jump you don't have to spend every other turn on it). When these align in your favor (viz. in many tough fights) it's the best weapon damage ability in the game, giving you 2x, 3x, or 4x damage with elemental spells.
So, looking at the pieces we've assembled, several combinations become available, and they can often combine in multiplicative ways. If you put Dual Wield on a Dancer, for example, your !Dance will hit with both weapons, for an overall damage output of 400% compared to just hitting with a single weapon. Once you have the gear for it, Dancer is a genuinely good physical attacker.
You can probably now see why the Spellblade + Dual Wield + Rapidfire Freelancer combo exists. It's taking the highest available damage multipliers that you can use at the same time and smashing them together. !Dance can substitute in for !Rapidfire, but while the damage is theoretically equivalent in most cases, Sword Dance's quad damage hit can run into the damage cap more easily than Rapidfire's half damage multiple hits.
Which might be a pro, if you want to see the number 9999 pop up on your screen.
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- Location
- Phoenix
Question, did you steal from Gilgamesh?
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
Exdeath declares our arrival is fortuitous, and he's going to use us to deter Galuf's attack; he orders that the 'giant mirror' be brought to him.
He has a giant hologram machine which he uses to threaten our friends by gloating over holding us hostage? Incredible. What a guy. I see that the writers decided to jettison 'character depth' as unnecessary weight and to replace them with four-color supervillain clichés, and Exdeath is living it.
MF really hit Galuf wit da SURRENDER DOROTHY, what a legend
Omi looking at Gilgamesh: "wow he is literally me"
Bartz noticing guards and Metal Gear Solid-ing his way across a corridor is just plain funny.
Can't you just see this as the kind of bit a parody sprite comic like 8-Bit Theatre would run? I can practically hear the loud THWACK of Bartz cratering the floor as he just drops into his KO'd sprite at Mach speed, then discomfortingly slithers over to the stairs.
The monsters of Galuf's worlds are beefier than those back home, but that's not saying much. I'm still dealing with them relatively easily. That is, until I make the foolish mistake of randomly opening a door without breach and clear protocols, at which point my ass is duly punished by an ambush from THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND
Can you imagine the level of genius and tactical brilliance it takes to come up with something like that? I am absolutely hosed here.
When you're in a 'being the best character' competition but you're Gilgamesh
Thankfully, after desperately summoning Titan and unleashing a barrage of attacks to try and stave off Gilgamesh's onslaught, it looks like I might have managed to pull off the hardest fight of this generation of gaming.
FUCK. HE GOT ME. I TOTALLY FELL FOR HIS CUNNING PLOY. HOW COULD I BE SO STUPID AS TO LET HIM CAST MULTIPLE SELF-BUFFS WHILE PRETENDING TO SURRENDER? I WAS JUST TOO AFRAID OF LOSING AGAINST HIS INCREDIBLE BATTLE PROWESS AND LET MYSELF BE BLUFFED!
It's okay, Gil. I think we can part ways on this, as good friends.
See that? He's surrendering! This is going great!
Gilgamesh faking surrender while buffing himself between each breath is just the funniest shit, FFV really was cooking with the switch to a more lighthearted tone by keeping to the standard FFIV set with gameplay-story integration.
Thank God he remembered he'd forgotten to iron his cat before he could start busting out his real attacks, or I might not have survived. And without Gilgamesh standing in our way, we are free to reach the end of the bridge.
There goes the greatest [boss fight] I've ever seen...
Before heading out, though, Bartz turns to Galuf, once again extending his apologies, saying that they had meant to help him but ended up being the one in need of rescue. Galuf laughs it off, saying that it's just business as usual. 'Meddlesome bums, the lot of you," he says; but as Bartz joins with the others and Galuf stays behind for a moment…
They're his friends, after all.
Galuf really is the peak.
Oh man, this fuckin cutscene.
There's nothing wrong with it or anything, but you see that old teacher lady in the flashback? For whatever reason, if you talk to her in the other room from now on, she'll flash back to this exact cutscene without prompting. At one point, I was trying to mash through this cutscene I'd already seen twice because I accidently talked to her again when revisiting the castle to check for new dialogue and accidently looped the entire thing. Great fun, good stuff.
To be slightly fair and not just make it about gender-conformity in the case of Faris, I can kinda see why the Chancellor might be against letting the long-lost older sister (and technically, probably heir to the throne since older sister) just pop by over a decade later and go "hey I'm alive actually, anyways screwing off to another world forever bye".
Yeah, they probably could have at least... sent Hiryu back to the castle or something once you had the airship, since it serves the exact same function but better. There's the roost at the top of Castle Tycoon and everything, might as well.
Yeahhhhh, without specific cheese strats or abilities this fight is just a slog. If you learned Magic Hammer for Blue magic at some point (which I think is a boss exclusive) or I guess did grinding up to Lancet for Dragoon you can drain their MP so they can't spam magic like that, and I think there was some condition under which they self-destruct, but overall it's just... not that fun of a fight.
I assume you just cut it for brevity, but fun fact there's exactly one encounter you can run into over and over on this island that's super easy to kill and exclusively drops tents. You know, in case you needed a tent for camping (or visit this island again later).
Suffice to say, shit like this is why I absolutely love Exdeath. He's just the biggest ham ever, beyond even how Golbez could be at times, and also he's just actively throwing himself into the plot from the second he's released unlike how a lot of the previous big bads would sit around somewhere waiting for you to show up in the endgame.
Also IT'S TIME, HERE HE COMES
THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND
Well, he does have access to the Thief job, clearly just swapped real quick when you weren't looking
what do you mean Lenna is already a Thief no ignore that
The absolute best part is that Bartz's sprite here? Doesn't change angles or directions or anything, just as long as you're moving anywhere in front of those windows, he's faceplanted into the floor sliding around in a repurposed knockout pose.
Bartz noticing guards and Metal Gear Solid-ing his way across a corridor is just plain funny.
Truly, Gilgamesh is a magnanimous soul, showing mercy to these weak and foolish Light Warriors.
Oh small side note, absolutely make sure to steal from Gilgamesh every time you run into him, as he's the only source in the game of one of the best armor sets. It doesn't matter in these two encounters at the start, but in every future one absolutely be ready to rob the guy.
- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- Singular They
Greg (at least in FFXIV) is also very much a Japanese theatre reference: all his gestures are straight from kabuki, over-exaggerated for comedy. Along with the Miles Gloriosus characterization, the immediate impression players should have of him is "overdramatic buffoon from a completely different media genre".
This persists even during his brief stint as Jim.
- Location
- The Great Beyond
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
It's interesting to consider that Genji armor already existed, but in FF5? It is very specifically Gilgamesh's. You can only get it by stealing from him, one piece a fight.
- Location
- Amman, Jordan
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I'm guessing it was developer foresight in case the players came in with no tents to initiate the cutscene. The scene itself happens when you lay down a tent to recover, so the players dying with no way to get a tent if they forgot to bring any would break the game. They just didn't feel like changing the variables after that, so that island only has that one encounter with that one drop.