- Location
- Land of the Midday Sun
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
HolyDragoon
Call Gespenst!
- Location
- Portugal
You sure you aren't aggregating Exodus and Ultima? Because the ion cannon part is Ultima's doing. Doesn't help they both do MP damage.
I know you were joking, but a classic would be some sort of "giant root(s) erupt from the ground" attack. Or "drops fruit that sprouts into monsters".
I'm not actually joking about the tree final form, it just seems like a logical set up for having a multi-stage final boss. I have been trying to work in Giving Tree jokes about it, but their not coming to me yet. I just keep thinking of Shadowjacks "The Doom Tree" from his IWIW Sailor Moon comics.
I was actually thinking of the old novel Doomtime, which featured a multi-thousand year long battle between two miles-high sapient trees whose roots underlay most of the world. That always sounded grandiose enough for a Final Fantasy game, to be honest.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I have at this point consumed all three routes of the original Fate/Stay Night as well as Fate/Zero and I have yet to encounter a single canonical appearance by this guy, I am by now convinced that Angra Mainyu is a fake character made up to gaslight me, which is appropriate given he's named after the Father of Lies
(I have nothing else to add, it's been forever since I played FFV because the fucking Gil Turtle walled me hard enough to break my stride and I've been playing other shit since)
Yeah, I've had the same thought, though it seemed a little bit of a stretch to go on from a single sprite alone - it is a very striking sprite, however.
It's interesting that this seems to be a recurring thing. @ZerbanDaGreat also stalled out around this part, you paused in the late game, I just took a three weeks break - the game is fun and endearing but there seems to be something to it that has people drift off at some point.
These kinds of tonal shifts in localization, where there is an active effort to pep up the dialogue which changes the tone of the characters' interaction, is always interesting to me. How do you make these decisions? When do you decide to stick to the script, and when do you decide that you can make the story better with the right shifts? Sometimes, like here, it seems like an obvious improvement over the original script - sometimes it's more... contentious.
Does it count if I'm the one correcting you given that I haven't finished the game so I can't spoil it? 😛
You're confusing Exodus and Ultima, I think. Exodus comes in two forms, the boss fight to acquire its summon, and the summon proper. The "boss" fight takes place at the base of a huge tree, and has you killing a bunch of fruits, while the summon is this... weird but kinda cool "person-shaped tree wearing an armor" kind of design.
I had that exact same thought but my post had exactly 50 images so I couldn't include a picture of Miriel as a gag.
"Heresy is not native to the world; it is but a contrivance. All things can be conjoined. Which is why we decided sticking hundreds of evil spirits into a single magic tree is a splendid idea."
Hmm, could be! I did a brief look online but I couldn't find any source that specified which term was used to describe Exdeath in English at a quick glance, and it seemed like delving deeper would probably have me run into spoilers.I'd take a shot in the dark and say warlock is a massaged translation of Maoh, which was coined as the translation for Witch-King in the Japanese LotR novels.
So everyone's favorite stock Japanese fantasy villain title went from English to Japanese and back again.
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The Angriest of Mangos is technically present in both of those, it's just you only see him in big curse blob form as part of the grail. His actual appearance as a speaking character with a personality is all in Fate/Hollow Ataraxia.
So you know, time to put off the Final Fantasy LP to go spend dozens of hours on more fate franchise, totally not to give Zerban and I time to stay ahead of things
Well, can't speak for Zerban but when I say lategame cleanup, I mean that part you get to in most of these RPGs where it's like "the final dungeon is open, but first here's a dozen sidequests and stuff to do to get ready!" So it's more... I'm stalled out by decision paralysis of what direction I want to go first, and then since I can't choose I just let the game fall to the wayside for a bit. Happens to me in most Final Fantasy games honestly, FF6 is the first in the series I've never actually finished for similar reasons.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Interestingly, Exdeath being a collection of evil spirits inhabiting a magic tree seems to have happened fairly late in development, judging from the concept art. Here's the only drawing Amano did of him outside of his armor
Which is less "Tree" and more "Shan Yu from Disney's Mulan, only half a decade earlier than Disney".
Oddly, Ghido was apparently at one point going to be the tree, since he has two pieces of concept art. One's a very plant-like turtle with no eyes that I can't for some reason get imgur to host the image of from the wiki (and google image search isn't giving me other sources for it). The other Ghido concept art being, as said, a wise old tree.
edit: found an image from an art print seller I had to rotate manually for End Product Ghido
Which is less "Tree" and more "Shan Yu from Disney's Mulan, only half a decade earlier than Disney".
Oddly, Ghido was apparently at one point going to be the tree, since he has two pieces of concept art. One's a very plant-like turtle with no eyes that I can't for some reason get imgur to host the image of from the wiki (and google image search isn't giving me other sources for it). The other Ghido concept art being, as said, a wise old tree.
edit: found an image from an art print seller I had to rotate manually for End Product Ghido
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Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Glad they changed it. Exdeath being not only an unrepentant Chaotic Evil bastard but also a complete 180 of the typical 'ancient and wise world tree' makes him one of the most unique villains in Final Fantasy video games. "We literally stuffed this magic tree full of evil spirits until it went haywire and decided to destroy the world" is a truly buckwild origin story.
- Location
- The Great Beyond
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
A quick poking around at his wiki page for actually unrelated reasons leads me to the trivia point that, apparently, in early drafts Exdeath was going to be a tree spirit who was originally Ghido's apprentice but then went evil.Interestingly, Exdeath being a collection of evil spirits inhabiting a magic tree seems to have happened fairly late in development, judging from the concept art. Here's the only drawing Amano did of him outside of his armor
Which is less "Tree" and more "Shan Yu from Disney's Mulan, only half a decade earlier than Disney".
Oddly, Ghido was apparently at one point going to be the tree, since he has two pieces of concept art. One's a very plant-like turtle with no eyes that I can't for some reason get imgur to host the image of from the wiki (and google image search isn't giving me other sources for it). The other Ghido concept art being, as said, a wise old tree.
edit: found an image from an art print seller I had to rotate manually for End Product Ghido
(the wiki does not specify what, if anything, would have caused this turn to evil, but apparently his goal would have been to resurrect an older bad guy)
So it sounds like he was always gonna be a tree guy, and it's just the other details that shifted around it.
(I was actually trying to see if the wiki gave any trivia on his japanese titling re: warlock, but no dice. Ah well. Maybe someone else can find more but my google fu was turning up nothing in general.)
- Location
- Nunya, Arizona
Okay, that? That actually has me thinking the design really is a Morla reference. Other than the size they're remarkably similar, right down to the moss and stuff growing on them and the way it kind of triangles into a second layer over their shell. If it's not intentional, it's very much convergent design.
GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
I dunno about that - I look at those things on his shoulder and my brain immediately goes "that's a mass of branches poking out of his shoulder with red leaves." That said, it could just be tassels...Interestingly, Exdeath being a collection of evil spirits inhabiting a magic tree seems to have happened fairly late in development, judging from the concept art. Here's the only drawing Amano did of him outside of his armor
Which is less "Tree" and more "Shan Yu from Disney's Mulan, only half a decade earlier than Disney".
Honestly that red thing on the left looks more like some sort of weird bat than anything else.
Without love it cannot be seen.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
Hm... I feel like it is interesting that the entity is called "Grail-Kun" and not "Angra Mainyu" in Carnival Phantasm, which is the highest level of Fate Lore.
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Is he not also in Grand/Order? I have never played that, but after so long it would be noteworthy if anyone was missing in a game like that. Though I guess Gacha and 'with a personality' could be incompatible.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Acknowledgement of Grand Order in my threads is punishable by death, resume Final Fantasy discussion immediately citizen
What sin is worthy, then, of excommunication?
Posting visible spoilers, naturally!
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I haven't been threadbanned though
Final Fantasy V, Part 17, Part A
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
At first, the way to the Forest of Moore appears difficult to find. Its location is obvious, but it is completely surrounded by mountains with no waterway or land passage.
It's that mountain-ringed forest in the west, just to the left of the red arrow pointing my location.
This takes me a little while to work out - diving and surfacing again to compare the two maps relative to each other, until I finally notice a little underwater tunnel to the west of the continent which lets us pass under the mountains and surface in a body of water within Moore.
And look, it's right next to a town!
The Moore townsfolk are a fairly isolated bunch, and surprised to see any visitors; they're familiar with the nearby forest and its sentient trees. One of the townsfolk tells us "something beautiful" was sealed in the forest five hundred years ago, which most likely refers to whatever Exdeath is looking for there. The forest is also home to wood sprites, who are shy but may be talked to by peeping into holes in the side of trees, and one of the townsfolk who got lost found his way back home thanks to a creature calling "kopu kopu," so we'll likely be running into moogles.
Oh, so the trees aren't all evil, it's just Exdeath? I thought Exdeath's awakening was what led to the trees coming to sentience, but I guess it's the other way around.
Overall, this has the vibe of a remote frontier town without much to offer, which is kind of funny because its stores are a massive jump in power.
We have the highest tier of elemental magic as well as as Hastega, a spell which casts Haste on our entire party. Fucking finally. Time Mage is about to pop off, I can tell. Graviga is also a very funny spell against anything which is actually weak to it - some enemies (like bosses) are immune, but against anything it affects, it straight up inflicts ⅞ of their HP as damage. The White Magic shop also says Curaga and Reflect! (And also Berserk in case anyone cares about using that.) It looks like we're getting at some serious late-game magic here. These spells are level 5; all the classes we have so far can cast magic up to lv 6. Either we're going to unlock new jobs that go beyond, or we're closing in on the final tier of spells - I previously leaned towards the former, but there isn't that much room for more levels when you already have the -aga line of spells, so… Flare next? I'm hopeful.
Once that business is done, we leave town and head for the forest. I'm pretty sure it was technically accessible as soon as we had the sub (as was Moore), but we wouldn't have been able to go through without the branch, although getting in on that lv 5 magic early would have been pretty sweet.
The Guardian Branch opens the path for us, and we head in.
Unfortunately, while the Forest is not home to chatty sentient tree NPCs we can talk to (for shame), it is full of evil hostile trees in the form of random encounters.
These "Galajellies" are some kind of magical spirit; they seem to absorb all magical damages, but have HP so low a single knife blow from one of the mages destroys them. Their main role is being an impediment to my ability to clear encounters with a single casting of Titan or Dualcast Bio - unless they survive long enough to cast Rainbow Beam, which inflicts a whole bunch of status effects like Blind+Silence, kinda Bad Breath style. The Mammon trees can buff their allies or themselves with Berserk, but they have very low speed and rarely survive long enough to make good on that threat. There was one funny incident in which Galuf (using the Dancing Dagger) causes a Mammon to grow Confused, which led to it trying to be helpful by "buffing" one of my characters with Berserk. The game's insistence that Berserk is a buff is kind of funny, in a way, although Bartz was the target so it still worked out. The Mini Magician is a wizard type casting debuff spells, such as, indeed, Mini.
These three are the majority of the encounters in the forest, with some Imps and an encounter with a Wyrm mob that drops a Dragon Fang and is otherwise unremarkable; enemy variety isn't very high, though they are amusingly random in aesthetic sensibilities.
The wood sprites, as it turns out, aren't as talkative as might have been suggested, but they are helpful, opening up new pathways for us:
We make our way through the forest, looting chests (gil, a Phoenix Down, a Morningstar weapon that is fit for casters), until we reached a particular point and suddenly, the ground shakes hard enough to knock down the whole party!
Oh.
That's not good.
…
Of all the villains we've had so far, Exdeath is by the one with the most immediate and visually perceptible scale of power. The Four Fiends make the apocalypse happen by squatting in their lairs for hundreds of years; the flood, Xande's greatest work, is already under way by the time we leave the flying island; Golbez and the Emperor both command vast armies and do most of their destruction through bombing runs or summoned monsters, or in Golbez's case mind control.
Exdeath is the first time we have an active antagonist who interrupts the plot by going "hey, don't mind me, just gonna sink this island with you on it" or "wouldn't it be funny if I set fire to this entire forest?" Dude can just snap his fingers and make natural disasters happen that rewrite geography on a massive scale. It's a really good way of viscerally conveying that this dude is hot shit, capable of widespread destruction at vast range.
Also… this is his home, isn't it? He's a tree from this forest specifically, and he is burning it down without a second thought. Cold.
Our heroes are once again in a dire position, trapped in the middle of the forest with no escape and fire everywhere. Thankfully, they have a surprise ally!
The moogle leads us to a hole in the ground and jumps down, leading us to do the same, and we find ourselves in an underground cavern, safe from the fire raging above.
They're not great conversationalists.
I'm starting to wonder if in the hypothetical "original D&D campaign" of Final Fantasy V, the moogles' language wasn't supposed to be a perfectly avoidable obstacle that you could negate with the right skill check or spell but the players either rolled horribly every time or simply never realized you were supposed to learn how to talk to them, forcing the GM to give Krile the Talk To Chocobo skill so all the information they have to provide wouldn't go to waste.
Damn.
Yeah, this is total devastation. The previously lush forest screens have been replaced by nothing but ash and scorched trees. Which…
Was that genocide?
I mean, we know the trees are sentient, right? This has been repeated many times. And Exdeath just… wiped out the entire forest. That is, if nothing else, mass murder. Obviously not anything surprising from this gloating font of evil, but it's kinda 'holy shit' when you stop to think about it, even if the story doesn't.
Although there is some tonal backlash from the fact that the random encounters haven't changed at all:
Same lush background, same enemy variety. This is a bit of a miss; the game has enough variety that a different background screen couldn't have been that much of an extra expense.
I will, however, grant the game some dramatic irony points for the selection of items that can be looted after the forest burned down:
A shield that protects against fire, a sword that makes things burn, and ash. Fantastic stuff.
And finally, we arrive at the heart of the forest.
The Guardian Branch flies up into the air, and the trees blocking the way vanish, while a door opens in the side of the tree. The party enters the tree, and are confronted with the force at its heart:
Hmmm.
Kinda weird that these enemies don't have names. And don't appear to really be… anything recognizable? They're vague shapes of… ice? Yeah, that looks like ice, right? They should probably be vulnerable to Firaga.
Golem proves quite useful in granting the party a shield against the unknown enemies' attacks. Firaga deals massive damage to the first… 'ice cluster'... as I expected; however, attempts at following it up with summoning Ifrit to incinerate all the enemies runs into the fact that, hm, one of the other clumps absorbs fire damage. Which… doesn't seem like something ice would do, right?
Actually, each of the crystals appears to have a specific elemental absorption. That's… probably not anything to worry about. Right?
And hey, fun fact, I don't even have to worry about that: they're not immune to Graviga!
Yeah, I wasn't kidding about the massive damage.
And we win!
Yaaaay! We've won!
Wait.
Those weren't ice clusters or whatever. Those were crystals. That's why they had separate elemental affinities.
Oh my god how did I not see that coming. That's why their name is blanked out and they have a seemingly random collection of magical spells! I am an idiot. And now we've been tricked into destroying the seals that protected said crystals - "broken by the four warriors meant to protect them… how ironic!" Exdeath gloats. The lightshow vanishes, revealing crystals at the top of the four pillars, which Exdeath promptly starts telekinetically pulling to him.
He's Sidious Force Lightning-ing the entire group simultaneously! Exdeath's supervillain swagger is impeccable.
It looks like our group is in dire straits. However will they escape?
Why, they'll bring in the most competent character in this entire story by a country mile.
…god, we really are in Saturday Morning Cartoon territory here. Oh no! Exdeath has the heroes in a death trap! Whatever shall we do? Quick, Cute Animal Mascot! Use your telepathic powers to send a message to the Overly Precocious Gifted Child! Only she can save the grownups this time!
I'm sorry, it's a good scene, it's just. At this point I'm ready to rename this game Final Fantasy the Animated Series. I could have been watching this on France 3 on the week-ends as a kid. And it's so earnest about it to. This game is totally un-self-conscious in a way that's honestly kind of refreshing?
Anyway, Krile tells the wind drake they have to go help and she flies halfway across the world in the next five seconds.
Incredible villain line right there. Like most very fast events I wasn't able to capture it, but basically this line is followed up by a lightning bolt darting from the bottom of the screen and hitting Exdeath in the face, knocking him out instantly.
I usually try not to sweat the scale of Final Fantasy's worlds too much. They come across as very obviously smaller than a "real" planet, being mostly made up of a dozen of city-states that people can easily travel between in a matter of days, and this is fine, a common thing in video games, and rarely breaks up my immersion. These are chibi sprite-based games, the fact that they feel "small" is kind of part of their charm.
But the fact that the distance between Castle Bal and the Forest of Moore can be covered by a flying drake in less time than it takes for Exdeath to finish frying the heroes with a single spell is just. Incredible.
And she took out Exdeath in one hit? I mean he's obviously going to get back up but Krile is literally single-handedly more effective at everything than the entire party put together, I love her. Best in game.
Unfortunately, Krile overestimated the strength of her spell, and while she's checking on the party, who are all in various states of passed out, Exdeath gets up behind her, curses the "Impudent little fool!", and conjures a ring of flame with which to trap her!
Presaging Sans Undertale's bullshit decades ahead of time, Exdeath uses his telekinesis to slam Krile around the walls of the room until she passes out, then, holding her pinned in place, resumes blasting the whole party with lightning. Man, this guy is compulsive about slow death traps closing in on people, isn't he? He's a total heel; he's not just absolutely evil, he also has to make a performance of it every time.
It's that mountain-ringed forest in the west, just to the left of the red arrow pointing my location.
This takes me a little while to work out - diving and surfacing again to compare the two maps relative to each other, until I finally notice a little underwater tunnel to the west of the continent which lets us pass under the mountains and surface in a body of water within Moore.
And look, it's right next to a town!
The Moore townsfolk are a fairly isolated bunch, and surprised to see any visitors; they're familiar with the nearby forest and its sentient trees. One of the townsfolk tells us "something beautiful" was sealed in the forest five hundred years ago, which most likely refers to whatever Exdeath is looking for there. The forest is also home to wood sprites, who are shy but may be talked to by peeping into holes in the side of trees, and one of the townsfolk who got lost found his way back home thanks to a creature calling "kopu kopu," so we'll likely be running into moogles.
Oh, so the trees aren't all evil, it's just Exdeath? I thought Exdeath's awakening was what led to the trees coming to sentience, but I guess it's the other way around.
Overall, this has the vibe of a remote frontier town without much to offer, which is kind of funny because its stores are a massive jump in power.
We have the highest tier of elemental magic as well as as Hastega, a spell which casts Haste on our entire party. Fucking finally. Time Mage is about to pop off, I can tell. Graviga is also a very funny spell against anything which is actually weak to it - some enemies (like bosses) are immune, but against anything it affects, it straight up inflicts ⅞ of their HP as damage. The White Magic shop also says Curaga and Reflect! (And also Berserk in case anyone cares about using that.) It looks like we're getting at some serious late-game magic here. These spells are level 5; all the classes we have so far can cast magic up to lv 6. Either we're going to unlock new jobs that go beyond, or we're closing in on the final tier of spells - I previously leaned towards the former, but there isn't that much room for more levels when you already have the -aga line of spells, so… Flare next? I'm hopeful.
Once that business is done, we leave town and head for the forest. I'm pretty sure it was technically accessible as soon as we had the sub (as was Moore), but we wouldn't have been able to go through without the branch, although getting in on that lv 5 magic early would have been pretty sweet.
The Guardian Branch opens the path for us, and we head in.
Unfortunately, while the Forest is not home to chatty sentient tree NPCs we can talk to (for shame), it is full of evil hostile trees in the form of random encounters.
These "Galajellies" are some kind of magical spirit; they seem to absorb all magical damages, but have HP so low a single knife blow from one of the mages destroys them. Their main role is being an impediment to my ability to clear encounters with a single casting of Titan or Dualcast Bio - unless they survive long enough to cast Rainbow Beam, which inflicts a whole bunch of status effects like Blind+Silence, kinda Bad Breath style. The Mammon trees can buff their allies or themselves with Berserk, but they have very low speed and rarely survive long enough to make good on that threat. There was one funny incident in which Galuf (using the Dancing Dagger) causes a Mammon to grow Confused, which led to it trying to be helpful by "buffing" one of my characters with Berserk. The game's insistence that Berserk is a buff is kind of funny, in a way, although Bartz was the target so it still worked out. The Mini Magician is a wizard type casting debuff spells, such as, indeed, Mini.
These three are the majority of the encounters in the forest, with some Imps and an encounter with a Wyrm mob that drops a Dragon Fang and is otherwise unremarkable; enemy variety isn't very high, though they are amusingly random in aesthetic sensibilities.
The wood sprites, as it turns out, aren't as talkative as might have been suggested, but they are helpful, opening up new pathways for us:
We make our way through the forest, looting chests (gil, a Phoenix Down, a Morningstar weapon that is fit for casters), until we reached a particular point and suddenly, the ground shakes hard enough to knock down the whole party!
Oh.
That's not good.
…
Of all the villains we've had so far, Exdeath is by the one with the most immediate and visually perceptible scale of power. The Four Fiends make the apocalypse happen by squatting in their lairs for hundreds of years; the flood, Xande's greatest work, is already under way by the time we leave the flying island; Golbez and the Emperor both command vast armies and do most of their destruction through bombing runs or summoned monsters, or in Golbez's case mind control.
Exdeath is the first time we have an active antagonist who interrupts the plot by going "hey, don't mind me, just gonna sink this island with you on it" or "wouldn't it be funny if I set fire to this entire forest?" Dude can just snap his fingers and make natural disasters happen that rewrite geography on a massive scale. It's a really good way of viscerally conveying that this dude is hot shit, capable of widespread destruction at vast range.
Also… this is his home, isn't it? He's a tree from this forest specifically, and he is burning it down without a second thought. Cold.
Our heroes are once again in a dire position, trapped in the middle of the forest with no escape and fire everywhere. Thankfully, they have a surprise ally!
The moogle leads us to a hole in the ground and jumps down, leading us to do the same, and we find ourselves in an underground cavern, safe from the fire raging above.
They're not great conversationalists.
I'm starting to wonder if in the hypothetical "original D&D campaign" of Final Fantasy V, the moogles' language wasn't supposed to be a perfectly avoidable obstacle that you could negate with the right skill check or spell but the players either rolled horribly every time or simply never realized you were supposed to learn how to talk to them, forcing the GM to give Krile the Talk To Chocobo skill so all the information they have to provide wouldn't go to waste.
Damn.
Yeah, this is total devastation. The previously lush forest screens have been replaced by nothing but ash and scorched trees. Which…
Was that genocide?
I mean, we know the trees are sentient, right? This has been repeated many times. And Exdeath just… wiped out the entire forest. That is, if nothing else, mass murder. Obviously not anything surprising from this gloating font of evil, but it's kinda 'holy shit' when you stop to think about it, even if the story doesn't.
Although there is some tonal backlash from the fact that the random encounters haven't changed at all:
Same lush background, same enemy variety. This is a bit of a miss; the game has enough variety that a different background screen couldn't have been that much of an extra expense.
I will, however, grant the game some dramatic irony points for the selection of items that can be looted after the forest burned down:
A shield that protects against fire, a sword that makes things burn, and ash. Fantastic stuff.
And finally, we arrive at the heart of the forest.
The Guardian Branch flies up into the air, and the trees blocking the way vanish, while a door opens in the side of the tree. The party enters the tree, and are confronted with the force at its heart:
Hmmm.
Kinda weird that these enemies don't have names. And don't appear to really be… anything recognizable? They're vague shapes of… ice? Yeah, that looks like ice, right? They should probably be vulnerable to Firaga.
Golem proves quite useful in granting the party a shield against the unknown enemies' attacks. Firaga deals massive damage to the first… 'ice cluster'... as I expected; however, attempts at following it up with summoning Ifrit to incinerate all the enemies runs into the fact that, hm, one of the other clumps absorbs fire damage. Which… doesn't seem like something ice would do, right?
Actually, each of the crystals appears to have a specific elemental absorption. That's… probably not anything to worry about. Right?
And hey, fun fact, I don't even have to worry about that: they're not immune to Graviga!
Yeah, I wasn't kidding about the massive damage.
And we win!
Yaaaay! We've won!
Wait.
Those weren't ice clusters or whatever. Those were crystals. That's why they had separate elemental affinities.
Oh my god how did I not see that coming. That's why their name is blanked out and they have a seemingly random collection of magical spells! I am an idiot. And now we've been tricked into destroying the seals that protected said crystals - "broken by the four warriors meant to protect them… how ironic!" Exdeath gloats. The lightshow vanishes, revealing crystals at the top of the four pillars, which Exdeath promptly starts telekinetically pulling to him.
He's Sidious Force Lightning-ing the entire group simultaneously! Exdeath's supervillain swagger is impeccable.
It looks like our group is in dire straits. However will they escape?
Why, they'll bring in the most competent character in this entire story by a country mile.
…god, we really are in Saturday Morning Cartoon territory here. Oh no! Exdeath has the heroes in a death trap! Whatever shall we do? Quick, Cute Animal Mascot! Use your telepathic powers to send a message to the Overly Precocious Gifted Child! Only she can save the grownups this time!
I'm sorry, it's a good scene, it's just. At this point I'm ready to rename this game Final Fantasy the Animated Series. I could have been watching this on France 3 on the week-ends as a kid. And it's so earnest about it to. This game is totally un-self-conscious in a way that's honestly kind of refreshing?
Anyway, Krile tells the wind drake they have to go help and she flies halfway across the world in the next five seconds.
Incredible villain line right there. Like most very fast events I wasn't able to capture it, but basically this line is followed up by a lightning bolt darting from the bottom of the screen and hitting Exdeath in the face, knocking him out instantly.
I usually try not to sweat the scale of Final Fantasy's worlds too much. They come across as very obviously smaller than a "real" planet, being mostly made up of a dozen of city-states that people can easily travel between in a matter of days, and this is fine, a common thing in video games, and rarely breaks up my immersion. These are chibi sprite-based games, the fact that they feel "small" is kind of part of their charm.
But the fact that the distance between Castle Bal and the Forest of Moore can be covered by a flying drake in less time than it takes for Exdeath to finish frying the heroes with a single spell is just. Incredible.
And she took out Exdeath in one hit? I mean he's obviously going to get back up but Krile is literally single-handedly more effective at everything than the entire party put together, I love her. Best in game.
Unfortunately, Krile overestimated the strength of her spell, and while she's checking on the party, who are all in various states of passed out, Exdeath gets up behind her, curses the "Impudent little fool!", and conjures a ring of flame with which to trap her!
Presaging Sans Undertale's bullshit decades ahead of time, Exdeath uses his telekinesis to slam Krile around the walls of the room until she passes out, then, holding her pinned in place, resumes blasting the whole party with lightning. Man, this guy is compulsive about slow death traps closing in on people, isn't he? He's a total heel; he's not just absolutely evil, he also has to make a performance of it every time.
Final Fantasy V, Part 17, Part B
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Unfortunately for Exdeath, he just threatened Krile's life in Galuf's presence, and this time, he's not being an amnesiac about it!
…yeah, in a choice between the crystals and his granddaughter, there's no contest. With all three remaining lightning flows taken up incapacitating another party member, Galuf is free to enter the ring of fire, shoving Krile out of it and to safety, while taking her place just as the ring closes in on him.
Oh, damn. He really is burning alive. The flames cling onto Galuf, the spell actively sustaining it, trapping him in a burning shroud.
And he's…
Wait.
He's charging at Exdeath?
This is a pretty boss sprite, to tell the truth.
Oh shit.
Oh it's not even a scripted battle we are actually playing Galuf. Oh no. Oh this is going hard. Does Galuf even stand a chance alone against such a foe? He's currently equipped with Time Magic (the damaging spells and buff spells will be fairly useless, though he can haste himself) and Summon - Titan can deal heavy damage, but Exdeath's opening move is Blizzaga, which…
A one hit kill.
…or is it?
…Galuf has 0 HP, but he is still fighting. We're breaking the very rules of the game here in a way that's never quite happened before. It doesn't matter what spells Exdeath unleashes on him (basically the entire -ga series), Galuf's HP can't go lower than zero, and the old man unleashes summon after summon, burning his HP pool for tens of thousands of cumulative damage, until the warlock is pressed hard enough to pull his own finisher move.
Unleashing all the most powerful spells of every school of magic, Exdeath hits Galuf with enough damage to wipe the entire party ten times over.
It's not enough. "Why… why won't you die?" Exdeath exclaims. "Takes a lot more than that for me to kick the bucket," Galuf replies in his characteristic irreverent tone. "I'll destroy you, even if it means I have to take you to the afterlife myself!"
In a characteristic display of villainous myopia, Exdeath fails to recognize which feelings are driving Galuf, and Galuf says so to him in so many words. His MP pool exhausted, Galuf makes one last attack with the dancing dagger - landing on a Jitterbug, dealing the last required bit of damage while healing himself back to positive HP.
Holy shit. Galuf attacked Exdeath alone, while actively on fire and transcended death to dunk on him even harder.
I do not expect him to survive this scene, but damn as far as character moments go this is up there with Tellah casting Meteor, with bonus points for the entire scene actually being playable. As we leave the battle screen, we find everyone knocked the fuck out:
…but, as we know from the backstory flashbacks, Exdeath is more tenacious than a cockroach, and simply layering on damage couldn't put him down when it was all four Dawn Warriors fighting him; the warlock manages to muster the strength to call the crystals to him, and absconds with his teleportation spell, leaving the rest of the group to slowly come to their senses.
The group hurries to Galuf's side, calling out his name in obvious worry, but he tells them there's nothing to be done.
The other characters are distraught; Faris yells "Get up, you old bat! Quit playing around, this isn't funny!" But alas, for once, this isn't a prank Galuf is playing on the others. With his dying breath, Galuf implores: "Bartz… Lenna… Faris… My dear Krile… Destroy… Exdeath… Destroy… Him…"
These are his final words, basically directly naming Krile to succeed him as one of the four heroes, and preemptively nuking (if it was necessary) any lingering idea that the solution to the Exdeath problem is not going to be "smack him in his stupid face until he dies." Which is in contrast to FFIV's kind of back-and-forth on the topic; Galuf was, implicitly, moved to incredible feats of power in fighting off the warlock by the desire to protect those he loved, rather than hatred, but ultimately the solution to guarantee said protection is still just to murder this guy.
And then, as the heroes refuse to accept Galuf's passing, we get one of the most important scenes in the franchise.
…
We went
Through TWENTY-FIVE YEARS
Of "why don't they use Phoenix Downs on Aerith???" arguments, memes and discourse - I can literally pull up a full page of Google results for people asking that question on fucking Quora in The Year Of Our Lord 2023
When this whole time Final Fantasy V had a scene in which the characters explicitly pull every healing spell and item, including Raise and Phoenix Down, to try and bring back a dying character, only for his injuries to prove too severe for these to save him?
I'm so mad.
Anyway, yeah. It's not just death by heroic sacrifice, either. The games have always operated on an abstracted battle system where HP loss in combat most likely represents close calls, minor injuries, getting winded, getting knocked out, that healing magic can immediately negate, whereas dramatic injuries are enough to put Edward or Yang in bed for a chunk of the story. This isn't new, but it's definitely nice to see it directly addressed in the story.
Well, back to the sorrow.
We are handed back control of the party, not that there is anything much to do other than check our menu to drive home the gap in our party composition, then talk to Krile again. Whereupon…
Dang. I guess, huh, the tree isn't holding a grudge for the whole "got fooled by Exdeath into breaking the seals and allowing him to steal the crystal," huh?
Krile doesn't want that, though. She doesn't want to take up Galuf's mantle and carry on his mission. She's a kid, and all she wants is her grandpa back. She protests and begs for him not to leave her alone, but Galuf tells her she knows he can't do that - but that she is not alone. After all, all of Galuf's friends are her friends now, ready to support her just as they supported Galuf - or Galuf supported them. And, with a flash of light…
…Galuf transfers his power to Krile, basically porting over all his mechanics, sidestepping the problem of power-level-upon-joining that plagued both FFII and FFIV by putting Krile on exactly equal footing to her grandfather, with the same levels, job levels and ABP.
God it's nice for the game to be convenient like that and not make us jump through hoops or waste the time spent building up Galuf. As well as making for a powerful statement regarding the passing of the torch to the new generation.
(Incidentally, this has very strong 'player wanted to change characters for flavor reasons so the GM let them do a new sheets with the same XP total' energy.)
Galuf, she says, warned her that Exdeath is intending to use the crystals to nefarious ends (which we might have predicted) and that he has returned to Castle Exdeath - we must hurry there as quickly as possible. She calls upon the wind drake, and with it, we fly away, towards Exdeath's lair and his terrible plans.
The scorched remains of the Forest of Moore.
Man. What a chapter.
It's not all positives - we are once again in a constant descending pattern like we've been for most of the game, where Exdeath goes "mwahahaha" and scores another victory as he heroes fail to meaningfully prevent his plans from coming to fruition, this time even worse because they get tricked into actively helping these plans come through, falling into avoidable traps for somewhat contrived reasons. Also, this isn't exactly original - we're basically revisiting the Tellah sacrifice scene with a different emotional beat (protecting one's loved ones rather than striking out of hatred), complete with the bad guy being a giant armored dude.
That said, this is mitigated by Exdeath then getting dunked on by a twelve-year old, the game selling the shit out of Galuf's heroic sacrifice, Exdeath's total cartoonish villainy briefly crashing into a wall of earnest anime resolve manifesting as great power, and the emotional beat of Krile accepting her grandfather's legacy. The Inexplicably Competent Child is, as ever, a highlight, and I'm happy to welcome her into the party.
I knew someone was going to die and Galuf had "It's gonna be me" flashing in giant neon letter over his head since the moment Krile first showed up if not earlier, but narrative turns don't have to be surprising to be well-delivered.
He had his Obi-Wan moment after all.
Alright, before I leave, one last thing:
Let's take a look at Krile's job sprites!
Oh dear. Oh dear, how precious.
Well, that's it for today!
…yeah, in a choice between the crystals and his granddaughter, there's no contest. With all three remaining lightning flows taken up incapacitating another party member, Galuf is free to enter the ring of fire, shoving Krile out of it and to safety, while taking her place just as the ring closes in on him.
Oh, damn. He really is burning alive. The flames cling onto Galuf, the spell actively sustaining it, trapping him in a burning shroud.
And he's…
Wait.
He's charging at Exdeath?
This is a pretty boss sprite, to tell the truth.
Oh shit.
Oh it's not even a scripted battle we are actually playing Galuf. Oh no. Oh this is going hard. Does Galuf even stand a chance alone against such a foe? He's currently equipped with Time Magic (the damaging spells and buff spells will be fairly useless, though he can haste himself) and Summon - Titan can deal heavy damage, but Exdeath's opening move is Blizzaga, which…
A one hit kill.
…or is it?
…Galuf has 0 HP, but he is still fighting. We're breaking the very rules of the game here in a way that's never quite happened before. It doesn't matter what spells Exdeath unleashes on him (basically the entire -ga series), Galuf's HP can't go lower than zero, and the old man unleashes summon after summon, burning his HP pool for tens of thousands of cumulative damage, until the warlock is pressed hard enough to pull his own finisher move.
Unleashing all the most powerful spells of every school of magic, Exdeath hits Galuf with enough damage to wipe the entire party ten times over.
It's not enough. "Why… why won't you die?" Exdeath exclaims. "Takes a lot more than that for me to kick the bucket," Galuf replies in his characteristic irreverent tone. "I'll destroy you, even if it means I have to take you to the afterlife myself!"
In a characteristic display of villainous myopia, Exdeath fails to recognize which feelings are driving Galuf, and Galuf says so to him in so many words. His MP pool exhausted, Galuf makes one last attack with the dancing dagger - landing on a Jitterbug, dealing the last required bit of damage while healing himself back to positive HP.
Holy shit. Galuf attacked Exdeath alone, while actively on fire and transcended death to dunk on him even harder.
I do not expect him to survive this scene, but damn as far as character moments go this is up there with Tellah casting Meteor, with bonus points for the entire scene actually being playable. As we leave the battle screen, we find everyone knocked the fuck out:
…but, as we know from the backstory flashbacks, Exdeath is more tenacious than a cockroach, and simply layering on damage couldn't put him down when it was all four Dawn Warriors fighting him; the warlock manages to muster the strength to call the crystals to him, and absconds with his teleportation spell, leaving the rest of the group to slowly come to their senses.
The group hurries to Galuf's side, calling out his name in obvious worry, but he tells them there's nothing to be done.
The other characters are distraught; Faris yells "Get up, you old bat! Quit playing around, this isn't funny!" But alas, for once, this isn't a prank Galuf is playing on the others. With his dying breath, Galuf implores: "Bartz… Lenna… Faris… My dear Krile… Destroy… Exdeath… Destroy… Him…"
These are his final words, basically directly naming Krile to succeed him as one of the four heroes, and preemptively nuking (if it was necessary) any lingering idea that the solution to the Exdeath problem is not going to be "smack him in his stupid face until he dies." Which is in contrast to FFIV's kind of back-and-forth on the topic; Galuf was, implicitly, moved to incredible feats of power in fighting off the warlock by the desire to protect those he loved, rather than hatred, but ultimately the solution to guarantee said protection is still just to murder this guy.
And then, as the heroes refuse to accept Galuf's passing, we get one of the most important scenes in the franchise.
…
We went
Through TWENTY-FIVE YEARS
Of "why don't they use Phoenix Downs on Aerith???" arguments, memes and discourse - I can literally pull up a full page of Google results for people asking that question on fucking Quora in The Year Of Our Lord 2023
When this whole time Final Fantasy V had a scene in which the characters explicitly pull every healing spell and item, including Raise and Phoenix Down, to try and bring back a dying character, only for his injuries to prove too severe for these to save him?
I'm so mad.
Anyway, yeah. It's not just death by heroic sacrifice, either. The games have always operated on an abstracted battle system where HP loss in combat most likely represents close calls, minor injuries, getting winded, getting knocked out, that healing magic can immediately negate, whereas dramatic injuries are enough to put Edward or Yang in bed for a chunk of the story. This isn't new, but it's definitely nice to see it directly addressed in the story.
Well, back to the sorrow.
We are handed back control of the party, not that there is anything much to do other than check our menu to drive home the gap in our party composition, then talk to Krile again. Whereupon…
Dang. I guess, huh, the tree isn't holding a grudge for the whole "got fooled by Exdeath into breaking the seals and allowing him to steal the crystal," huh?
Krile doesn't want that, though. She doesn't want to take up Galuf's mantle and carry on his mission. She's a kid, and all she wants is her grandpa back. She protests and begs for him not to leave her alone, but Galuf tells her she knows he can't do that - but that she is not alone. After all, all of Galuf's friends are her friends now, ready to support her just as they supported Galuf - or Galuf supported them. And, with a flash of light…
…Galuf transfers his power to Krile, basically porting over all his mechanics, sidestepping the problem of power-level-upon-joining that plagued both FFII and FFIV by putting Krile on exactly equal footing to her grandfather, with the same levels, job levels and ABP.
God it's nice for the game to be convenient like that and not make us jump through hoops or waste the time spent building up Galuf. As well as making for a powerful statement regarding the passing of the torch to the new generation.
(Incidentally, this has very strong 'player wanted to change characters for flavor reasons so the GM let them do a new sheets with the same XP total' energy.)
Galuf, she says, warned her that Exdeath is intending to use the crystals to nefarious ends (which we might have predicted) and that he has returned to Castle Exdeath - we must hurry there as quickly as possible. She calls upon the wind drake, and with it, we fly away, towards Exdeath's lair and his terrible plans.
The scorched remains of the Forest of Moore.
Man. What a chapter.
It's not all positives - we are once again in a constant descending pattern like we've been for most of the game, where Exdeath goes "mwahahaha" and scores another victory as he heroes fail to meaningfully prevent his plans from coming to fruition, this time even worse because they get tricked into actively helping these plans come through, falling into avoidable traps for somewhat contrived reasons. Also, this isn't exactly original - we're basically revisiting the Tellah sacrifice scene with a different emotional beat (protecting one's loved ones rather than striking out of hatred), complete with the bad guy being a giant armored dude.
That said, this is mitigated by Exdeath then getting dunked on by a twelve-year old, the game selling the shit out of Galuf's heroic sacrifice, Exdeath's total cartoonish villainy briefly crashing into a wall of earnest anime resolve manifesting as great power, and the emotional beat of Krile accepting her grandfather's legacy. The Inexplicably Competent Child is, as ever, a highlight, and I'm happy to welcome her into the party.
I knew someone was going to die and Galuf had "It's gonna be me" flashing in giant neon letter over his head since the moment Krile first showed up if not earlier, but narrative turns don't have to be surprising to be well-delivered.
He had his Obi-Wan moment after all.
Alright, before I leave, one last thing:
Let's take a look at Krile's job sprites!
Oh dear. Oh dear, how precious.
Well, that's it for today!
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This whole section hits so goddamn hard. Exdeath, as always, is just such a fun evil bastard, but Galuf's sendoff is much more intense than needed, making it all so much more memorable for it.
Exdeath could probably find a nefarious use for a loaf of bread.
Exdeath could probably find a nefarious use for a loaf of bread.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yep, that's why XIV Krile (a not-White Mage) is wearing the cat-ear-hood - because V Krile had that as her White Mage sprite, as a shoutout to III's Devouts.
Also, the "you get Krile as a replacement" thing is another way in which Galuf's death beats Aerith's - not only does it show he's too injured for healing spells or items to work, but it gives you a gameplay replacement rather than punishing you for the grinding you did, and the replacement doesn't rob emotional weight from the death either.
I have to say, between those two things, the emotional beats, and the fucking amazing battle at 0 hp to show how determined he is Galuf's death has got to be my favorite death scene in the entire franchise. Bar none. Everything else merely tries to do almost as well.
Also, the "you get Krile as a replacement" thing is another way in which Galuf's death beats Aerith's - not only does it show he's too injured for healing spells or items to work, but it gives you a gameplay replacement rather than punishing you for the grinding you did, and the replacement doesn't rob emotional weight from the death either.
I have to say, between those two things, the emotional beats, and the fucking amazing battle at 0 hp to show how determined he is Galuf's death has got to be my favorite death scene in the entire franchise. Bar none. Everything else merely tries to do almost as well.
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