As someone who is getting their first real exposure to V via this thread, I'd heard about the job system, of course, and how a lot of people really dug those mechanics. What I didn't know about was the great lovable dork energy the cast and story have as well. I can certainly see the appeal. I doubt it will dethrone VI for me for a variety of reasons (though I'll hold final judgment 'till I play it for myself), nostalgia not least of them, but I can talk more about that when Omicron gets there.
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
As someone who is getting their first real exposure to V via this thread, I'd heard about the job system, of course, and how a lot of people really dug those mechanics. What I didn't know about was the great lovable dork energy the cast and story have as well. I can certainly see the appeal. I doubt it will dethrone VI for me for a variety of reasons (though I'll hold final judgment 'till I play it for myself), nostalgia not least of them, but I can talk more about that when Omicron gets there.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I have my next update ready to go, but something seems to have broken in either gdocs or the forum. When I copy-paste from the gdoc which has all the screenshots integrated into it into the forum reply box, all the pictures vanish in transit.
I have tried on my old busted laptop, my new gifted desktop, and my phone; it's not working on any of them.
I don't know what to do about it.
I have tried on my old busted laptop, my new gifted desktop, and my phone; it's not working on any of them.
I don't know what to do about it.
- Location
- Nunya, Arizona
First, sacrifice a chicken. If that fails, try goat.
...less more seriously, see if pasting via another method works when gdoc doesn't, just to see if you can isolate exactly where the break's happen? Might help track down a solution.
If all else fails, can always try giving it a day or trying a different browser. Sometimes the problem's software specific or gets fixed relatively quickly...
...
If all else fails, can always try giving it a day or trying a different browser. Sometimes the problem's software specific or gets fixed relatively quickly...
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
You could do my work around: Upload the pictures to a site that lets you upload pictures for free and then use "insert media" to place them in your post at the appropriate points. It's awkward, but it works.
I did it on my "Where I Watch" thread.
I did it on my "Where I Watch" thread.
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- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah, I've considered that, but the extra time, though.
Like the way I insert screenshots right now takes a few seconds. I slide the screenshot from my Screenshots folder to my gdoc, then I copy-paste the entire gdoc into the SV reply box at the end. If I need to manually upload pictures then wrangle URLs into
boxes...Well, a single-post update typically has 40 to 50 pictures, leaning towards 50. Those are selected out of a set of... I wanna say 300-400 that I have to manually browse you to pick the ones I want? If the whole process takes me one minute per picture, that's an extra hour of mindless trudgery per update. I have podcasts and audiobooks to pass the time while doing repititive work, but at some point this isn't worth it. These updates already take at least three hours to write and I have a Quest I'm supposed to be running.
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Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
With Imgur, right-click > copy image address and the [ i m g ] [/ i m g] tag it takes me about five minutes to put the images into my LP when I do a big update (50 odd images). It's tedious but it's not particularly time-consuming. Uploading the images takes like 30 seconds and most of that's waiting for them to actually upload to Imgur.
daniel_gudman
KING (in land of blind)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I could not reproduce, or rather, it worked for me; I created a new gdoc, took a screenshot of it, inserted the screenshot into the doc; then CTRL+A, CTRL+C, cursor into reply box, CTRL+V, and then when I hit "Preview" I saw the test text & the screenshot as expected. When I looked at it the BBC Code in was the same googleusercontent.com/dogs_breakfast as your images, so it was replicating the same linking too.
Well, that might be it? Do you have the double brackets "[ ]" clicked in the upper right of the reply box in the forum? Because if you try to copypasta into it with the Toggle BBC Code option toggled it will not parse. How about other formatting such as italics or bold? Is that lost, or does it remain?
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- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I've tried toggling the BB code brackets on and off, but it hasn't changed anything. With BB code toggled off, the formatting is rendered appropriately, it's really just the pictures.
However, it appears the issue is inconsistent from individual to individual. One of my friends has the same problem where pictures won't copy, another one has no issue pasting the update in the reply box just as you have.
EDIT: IT WORKS FROM INCOGNITO MODE??? WHAT THE FUCK
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Quick! Windmill slam the update before the eldritch internet gods come for you again!
daniel_gudman
KING (in land of blind)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hm a couple things to try. Assume you're on windows?
Try "Start" (Windows key) => "Settings" => "System" => scroll down to "Clipboard" and then click "Clear" to clean out the clipboard. Then try again.
Maybe try doing it in smaller bites, a few at a time? There's not like, a size limit to how big of a file you can pretend to have in the clipboard, but sometimes applications get pissed off if it includes a bunch of formatting data they don't understand.
Maybe copypaste into a Word doc and see if the pictures show up there? I get my test pics in, but it was an actual pic not a link, so maybe the browser is having to decide how to parse that the clipboard is telling it both the hotlink location of the picture, and also, like, the actual picture?
Try "Start" (Windows key) => "Settings" => "System" => scroll down to "Clipboard" and then click "Clear" to clean out the clipboard. Then try again.
Maybe try doing it in smaller bites, a few at a time? There's not like, a size limit to how big of a file you can pretend to have in the clipboard, but sometimes applications get pissed off if it includes a bunch of formatting data they don't understand.
Maybe copypaste into a Word doc and see if the pictures show up there? I get my test pics in, but it was an actual pic not a link, so maybe the browser is having to decide how to parse that the clipboard is telling it both the hotlink location of the picture, and also, like, the actual picture?
stormbringer951
Against Eternity
This hacky workaround brought to you by someone else's extremely useful observation that copy-paste with googleusercontent hosted images was working for them when copy-pasting from a tab logged in on one user account but not from one that was logged in on another 😂.
Final Fantasy V, Part 22, Part A
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
DISCLAIMER: Getting this update to work took me the better part of a day if I see even one joke about how I forgot to switch my rows (which of course I DID) I am sending you to the shadow realm
Okay, where were we? Right, picking between the Chicken Knife and the Brave Blade, of which I have chosen the Brave Blade. And upon picking up our prize, the old man reveals himself to be… a skellington?
Then he runs away and disappears.
What a weird event. I have no idea what it's about; it feels like it's referencing something, some kind of folklore tale or whatever, but what I have no idea.
Well, that's us done with Moore! Let's head back out in the overworld and to the airship. For this, we'll need to go through the Guardian Tree's forest again. Cue cutscene…
A wind drake?
It's Hiryu the wind drake!
Lenna's old friend deposits a surprise for us: Lenna herself!
Okay, well, that's a relief. I was genuinely starting to wonder what was up with that.
I beg your pardon?
The whole party either jumps back from sheer startling or are knocked back by some unseen effect, it's not clear, and with a characteristic theatrical entrance, Exdeath shows up to plague us once again with the reveal that Lenna is possessed!
Exdeath boasts that "all that was once sealed within the Rift is now mine to command," and Melusine/Lenna starts attacking the party, who are unable to bring themselves to fight against their friend and so are getting crushed while Exdeath laughs.
Yeah, that's something Exdeath would find extremely fun.
With everyone helpless to stop him, Exdeath announces that he has "a turtle infestation to take care of," and teleports away, and, uh.
Remember when I said that Exdeath likes to remove problems from the board in any way he can rather than commit to personal fights with people who might actually threaten him? And how Ghido was almost able to defeat him one on one?
Yeah, he's find a solution to that.
Just pull the entire thing into the Void, no fight required. It's definitely one way to solve the problem. Also I love the way the scholar sprites look shocked as they are pulled away into the air, presumably representing being 'sucked in' by the black hole.
Exdeath reappears only to declare that soon, the power of the Void will be fully his, and then the Earth will kneel before him, then vanishes, leaving Melusine/Lenna to finish off the party.
Which is a rookie move, if you're asking me. You have to commit to these things, or else all you're doing is giving your enemies an opportunity to claw back the advantage you've just secured. Case in point, Hiryu, the wind drake who'd just dropped Lenna, comes swooping back, and…
..okay, how.
Like what is the mechanism through which this is happening. How did Hiryu's attack/sacrifice result in the demon being expelled? Did he burn his life force in an impromptu exorcism that dragon can do somehow? Did he just literally physically attack Lenna and that was enough to drive the demon out? I would like to understand because this is Final Fantasy V being mean to animal friends once again, and that's quite enough! At this point I'm starting to worry about Boko's safety-
Oh fuck he literally has a pregnant wife at home that he left behind for One Last Job, shit, I hadn't even thought about it, Boko is literally fucking doomed
God. This is a lot to take in. "Boko plays war movie tropes straight" wasn't on my list today.
Damn though this sucks, the wind drakes were near extinct, but with one on each world and the worlds now merged, they could have paired together and brought back their species! Ah, well.
Okay, so Lenna is still unconscious from the shock of possession/Hiryu's attack, but the rest of the group stands up as Melusine manifests physically, and are now ready to fight!
Etymology Flashpoint
You know, at some point I started to think, maybe I should actually go into Final Fantasy's choice of references for naming characters and monsters? Like, the fact that the game named its Benkei/Miles Gloriosus figure Gilgamesh feels kind of random, doesn't it? What does the great king of our oldest epic searching for immortality has to do with any of what Game!Gil has going?
Anyway, Melusine. Melusine is a spirit/fairy figure of French and Dutch lore, who is portrayed as a woman with snake-like traits; in her most famous tale, she marries a noble on the condition that he not look into her room on Saturdays, for this is the day when she turns into a serpent from the waist down. As is typical in fairy stories, her husband breaks the rule, and when she learns he's seen her, she turns into a dragon and flies away.
Alternatively you read French comics and it's the name of a cute witch who has gag adventures for children.
I didn't have a childhood crush, you shut up.
Anyway, so, Melusine! She definitely has some kind of snake motif going, although I'm not exactly clear from her sprite on how it connects to her body which appears to mostly be A Naked Woman. This is, hopefully, our last three-man fight; we're going in with Faris as Summoner/Dualcast, which is unfortunate because it means her power is lower than it was previously; her strongest damage summon is Titan, and Melusine is resistant to it, taking 0 damage when I cast it, while her elemental summons are still only -ra tier in power, instead of the -ga line she would have access to if she were in Black Mage mode. Even Dualcast is only enough to barely make up for it. We also have Krile in White Mage/Summoner, where Time Magic would have been better. It's not a great party for what I'm doing here.
So, Melusine's mechanic: she's a Hein-type. She is primary a spell-based attacker using the -ga trio of elemental spells, with the occasional physical attack, and she has one elemental weakness; she absorbs both other types of the elemental triangle, and is immune to all other elements. That means, if she's in Fire mode, she is vulnerable to fire, absorbs lightning and ice, and is immune to earth, water, and poison. She also has sky-high Defense against physical damage.
On the other hand, I have Bartz as a Freelancer. Specifically, I have him equipped with Spellblade and passively benefitting from Dual-Wielding. And we just got the Brave Sword with its +137 attack power. Also, her primary means of attacking is spells, so…
Summoning Carbuncle makes the fight longer, because every time Melusine's spell bounces back to her it heals her, but it also means she has no real way of hurting us besides her infrequent physical attack, which in turns runs into Golem's HP shield, which means I have all the time in the world to have Faris cast Libra to identify her weakness after Barrier Shift, then have Bartz use Spellblade to hit her for 6,000 damage.
Okay, 3000 damage, but it would have been 6000 if I had remembered to swap Bartz's rows.
It was not difficult. Freelancer really is the funniest job.
Screenshot of a second run I took at this fight to see if I could zero her down even more efficiently once I remembered to swap rows, only to do the stupid mistake of summoning Carbuncle and then casting Blink at my own party, resulting in Blinked Melusine.
And with the monster defeated, Lenna wakes up, weakly calling out to her friends, who tell her it's alright.
And with this, the party is rejoined.
Yeah, there's no extra scene of Lenna in recovery or anything, she is directly added to the party and we're dumped back onto the overworld.
Okay. Are we finally getting that airship? Is that a thing that's going to happen? Is the world going to open up for good?
The hole where the Library of Ancients used to be, incidentally cutting us off from a mountain pass to the south.
Everyone's taking this great.
A few scholars managed to make it out of the library in time, and are now in the castle to the north, ready to repeat the Sealed Tome's exposition back to us in case we need it. And a little north of that, we finally find the airship, in its sailing ship form, at last!
The group reaffirms their resolve to obtain the twelve legendary weapons as quickly as possible, but then we cut to Meanwhile At Villain HQ, where Exdeath is basking in his newfound power.
What plays out next is a series of devastating Void portals showing up across the world and engulfing various townsthat the developers didn't have the time to make update merged dialogue lines for in order to show that the stakes have risen and to drive home the urgency of the situation.
Okay, no, I'm sorry, the goofy sprites are making this way more funny than it is horrifying.
I don't recognize every town that's being swallowed by the Void here - I think there's Castle Wals, one of the minor early towns, and more importantly… The Moogle Forest and Lix, Bartz's hometown.
Damn, that's rough.
What follows is, huh, a nervous breakdown. Bartz takes the vanishing of his hometown extremely poorly, and drives the airship into a kind of… mad rush?
The ship flies, like, around the entire world several times. Which, hm, is effective at conveying that Bartz is upset - it's kind of the airship equivalent of someone who is having a crisis while driving a car pushing the pedal down while screaming as they break every speed limit. On the other hand it kinda drives home how ridiculously small Final Fantasy worlds are; at one point I actually wondered if we were going to do a Superman reference and have the ship fly around the world so fast it actually turned back time.
Eventually, Bartz's friend manage to get him to stop before he kills everyone by crashing into a mountain.
Bartz looks down in despair, and the game hands us back the airship's control - just over the dark pit that remains where Bartz's hometown should be.
Those games get pretty apocalyptic, huh?
Final Fantasy III and IV had dramatic world stakes and battles for the fate of the world, for sure, but here it's more pulling an FFII move - the Emperor showing up and annihilating several towns we went through during the course of the game, including ones to which we have direct personal ties.
Except it doesn't really land as hard because I don't really believe those places are gone - I mean in a physical sense they obviously are, but just like with Lenna, it seems too much? I don't think the game would off-screen-death Ghido like that without him getting a single line. I think the odds are very strong that these places are currently 'stuck' in the Interdimensional Rift and as part of the endgame we will be rescuing them. Or I hope so, anyway!
Well, the first thing I want to do is head to Kudze Castle and get my first legendary weapons before tackling any further elemental shrines.
…what the fuck is the Tycoon Chancellor doing here. How did he escape the Void?
Anyway, these scholars have a bunch of hints as to the location of the remaining shrines, which are appreciated. As for the castle itself, it now has a new random encounter in addition to the Shield Dragon:
Okay so we're doing the Emperor's Soul again but with Exdeath, only this one is way more annoying. Basically all its attacks are instant kill and it doesn't seem to be taking any meaningful damage from anything I've got? Yeah, fuck that.
I don't have the patience to put up with this right now, so I just run from every fight until I get to the room upstairs and finally get to unlock some of the legendary weapons.
Notice how the stairway that led us to this room disappears behind us; we have to pick three of the legendary weapons before we can leave the room, there's no leaving the choice for later unless you decide not to visit the castle in the first place. Assuming you can even do that? I am not sure if the plot locks you out of further location if you don't visit the castle.
Break for image count.
Okay, where were we? Right, picking between the Chicken Knife and the Brave Blade, of which I have chosen the Brave Blade. And upon picking up our prize, the old man reveals himself to be… a skellington?
Then he runs away and disappears.
What a weird event. I have no idea what it's about; it feels like it's referencing something, some kind of folklore tale or whatever, but what I have no idea.
Well, that's us done with Moore! Let's head back out in the overworld and to the airship. For this, we'll need to go through the Guardian Tree's forest again. Cue cutscene…
A wind drake?
It's Hiryu the wind drake!
Lenna's old friend deposits a surprise for us: Lenna herself!
Okay, well, that's a relief. I was genuinely starting to wonder what was up with that.
I beg your pardon?
The whole party either jumps back from sheer startling or are knocked back by some unseen effect, it's not clear, and with a characteristic theatrical entrance, Exdeath shows up to plague us once again with the reveal that Lenna is possessed!
Exdeath boasts that "all that was once sealed within the Rift is now mine to command," and Melusine/Lenna starts attacking the party, who are unable to bring themselves to fight against their friend and so are getting crushed while Exdeath laughs.
Yeah, that's something Exdeath would find extremely fun.
With everyone helpless to stop him, Exdeath announces that he has "a turtle infestation to take care of," and teleports away, and, uh.
Remember when I said that Exdeath likes to remove problems from the board in any way he can rather than commit to personal fights with people who might actually threaten him? And how Ghido was almost able to defeat him one on one?
Yeah, he's find a solution to that.
Just pull the entire thing into the Void, no fight required. It's definitely one way to solve the problem. Also I love the way the scholar sprites look shocked as they are pulled away into the air, presumably representing being 'sucked in' by the black hole.
Exdeath reappears only to declare that soon, the power of the Void will be fully his, and then the Earth will kneel before him, then vanishes, leaving Melusine/Lenna to finish off the party.
Which is a rookie move, if you're asking me. You have to commit to these things, or else all you're doing is giving your enemies an opportunity to claw back the advantage you've just secured. Case in point, Hiryu, the wind drake who'd just dropped Lenna, comes swooping back, and…
..okay, how.
Like what is the mechanism through which this is happening. How did Hiryu's attack/sacrifice result in the demon being expelled? Did he burn his life force in an impromptu exorcism that dragon can do somehow? Did he just literally physically attack Lenna and that was enough to drive the demon out? I would like to understand because this is Final Fantasy V being mean to animal friends once again, and that's quite enough! At this point I'm starting to worry about Boko's safety-
Oh fuck he literally has a pregnant wife at home that he left behind for One Last Job, shit, I hadn't even thought about it, Boko is literally fucking doomed
God. This is a lot to take in. "Boko plays war movie tropes straight" wasn't on my list today.
Damn though this sucks, the wind drakes were near extinct, but with one on each world and the worlds now merged, they could have paired together and brought back their species! Ah, well.
Okay, so Lenna is still unconscious from the shock of possession/Hiryu's attack, but the rest of the group stands up as Melusine manifests physically, and are now ready to fight!
Etymology Flashpoint
You know, at some point I started to think, maybe I should actually go into Final Fantasy's choice of references for naming characters and monsters? Like, the fact that the game named its Benkei/Miles Gloriosus figure Gilgamesh feels kind of random, doesn't it? What does the great king of our oldest epic searching for immortality has to do with any of what Game!Gil has going?
Anyway, Melusine. Melusine is a spirit/fairy figure of French and Dutch lore, who is portrayed as a woman with snake-like traits; in her most famous tale, she marries a noble on the condition that he not look into her room on Saturdays, for this is the day when she turns into a serpent from the waist down. As is typical in fairy stories, her husband breaks the rule, and when she learns he's seen her, she turns into a dragon and flies away.
Alternatively you read French comics and it's the name of a cute witch who has gag adventures for children.
I didn't have a childhood crush, you shut up.
Anyway, so, Melusine! She definitely has some kind of snake motif going, although I'm not exactly clear from her sprite on how it connects to her body which appears to mostly be A Naked Woman. This is, hopefully, our last three-man fight; we're going in with Faris as Summoner/Dualcast, which is unfortunate because it means her power is lower than it was previously; her strongest damage summon is Titan, and Melusine is resistant to it, taking 0 damage when I cast it, while her elemental summons are still only -ra tier in power, instead of the -ga line she would have access to if she were in Black Mage mode. Even Dualcast is only enough to barely make up for it. We also have Krile in White Mage/Summoner, where Time Magic would have been better. It's not a great party for what I'm doing here.
So, Melusine's mechanic: she's a Hein-type. She is primary a spell-based attacker using the -ga trio of elemental spells, with the occasional physical attack, and she has one elemental weakness; she absorbs both other types of the elemental triangle, and is immune to all other elements. That means, if she's in Fire mode, she is vulnerable to fire, absorbs lightning and ice, and is immune to earth, water, and poison. She also has sky-high Defense against physical damage.
On the other hand, I have Bartz as a Freelancer. Specifically, I have him equipped with Spellblade and passively benefitting from Dual-Wielding. And we just got the Brave Sword with its +137 attack power. Also, her primary means of attacking is spells, so…
Summoning Carbuncle makes the fight longer, because every time Melusine's spell bounces back to her it heals her, but it also means she has no real way of hurting us besides her infrequent physical attack, which in turns runs into Golem's HP shield, which means I have all the time in the world to have Faris cast Libra to identify her weakness after Barrier Shift, then have Bartz use Spellblade to hit her for 6,000 damage.
Okay, 3000 damage, but it would have been 6000 if I had remembered to swap Bartz's rows.
It was not difficult. Freelancer really is the funniest job.
Screenshot of a second run I took at this fight to see if I could zero her down even more efficiently once I remembered to swap rows, only to do the stupid mistake of summoning Carbuncle and then casting Blink at my own party, resulting in Blinked Melusine.
And with the monster defeated, Lenna wakes up, weakly calling out to her friends, who tell her it's alright.
And with this, the party is rejoined.
Yeah, there's no extra scene of Lenna in recovery or anything, she is directly added to the party and we're dumped back onto the overworld.
Okay. Are we finally getting that airship? Is that a thing that's going to happen? Is the world going to open up for good?
The hole where the Library of Ancients used to be, incidentally cutting us off from a mountain pass to the south.
Everyone's taking this great.
A few scholars managed to make it out of the library in time, and are now in the castle to the north, ready to repeat the Sealed Tome's exposition back to us in case we need it. And a little north of that, we finally find the airship, in its sailing ship form, at last!
The group reaffirms their resolve to obtain the twelve legendary weapons as quickly as possible, but then we cut to Meanwhile At Villain HQ, where Exdeath is basking in his newfound power.
What plays out next is a series of devastating Void portals showing up across the world and engulfing various towns
Okay, no, I'm sorry, the goofy sprites are making this way more funny than it is horrifying.
I don't recognize every town that's being swallowed by the Void here - I think there's Castle Wals, one of the minor early towns, and more importantly… The Moogle Forest and Lix, Bartz's hometown.
Damn, that's rough.
What follows is, huh, a nervous breakdown. Bartz takes the vanishing of his hometown extremely poorly, and drives the airship into a kind of… mad rush?
The ship flies, like, around the entire world several times. Which, hm, is effective at conveying that Bartz is upset - it's kind of the airship equivalent of someone who is having a crisis while driving a car pushing the pedal down while screaming as they break every speed limit. On the other hand it kinda drives home how ridiculously small Final Fantasy worlds are; at one point I actually wondered if we were going to do a Superman reference and have the ship fly around the world so fast it actually turned back time.
Eventually, Bartz's friend manage to get him to stop before he kills everyone by crashing into a mountain.
Bartz looks down in despair, and the game hands us back the airship's control - just over the dark pit that remains where Bartz's hometown should be.
Those games get pretty apocalyptic, huh?
Final Fantasy III and IV had dramatic world stakes and battles for the fate of the world, for sure, but here it's more pulling an FFII move - the Emperor showing up and annihilating several towns we went through during the course of the game, including ones to which we have direct personal ties.
Except it doesn't really land as hard because I don't really believe those places are gone - I mean in a physical sense they obviously are, but just like with Lenna, it seems too much? I don't think the game would off-screen-death Ghido like that without him getting a single line. I think the odds are very strong that these places are currently 'stuck' in the Interdimensional Rift and as part of the endgame we will be rescuing them. Or I hope so, anyway!
Well, the first thing I want to do is head to Kudze Castle and get my first legendary weapons before tackling any further elemental shrines.
…what the fuck is the Tycoon Chancellor doing here. How did he escape the Void?
Anyway, these scholars have a bunch of hints as to the location of the remaining shrines, which are appreciated. As for the castle itself, it now has a new random encounter in addition to the Shield Dragon:
Okay so we're doing the Emperor's Soul again but with Exdeath, only this one is way more annoying. Basically all its attacks are instant kill and it doesn't seem to be taking any meaningful damage from anything I've got? Yeah, fuck that.
I don't have the patience to put up with this right now, so I just run from every fight until I get to the room upstairs and finally get to unlock some of the legendary weapons.
Notice how the stairway that led us to this room disappears behind us; we have to pick three of the legendary weapons before we can leave the room, there's no leaving the choice for later unless you decide not to visit the castle in the first place. Assuming you can even do that? I am not sure if the plot locks you out of further location if you don't visit the castle.
Break for image count.
Final Fantasy V, Part 22, Part B
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Masamune, the legendary katana, for Samurai; Excalibur, the legendary sword, for Knight; and the Magus Rod, the legendary rod, for Summoner/Black Mage. Also I've swapped Lenna to Knight because I want her to master Two-Handed; my plan is for her Freelancer job to have the passives of a mastered Thief, Monk, and Samurai, then to equip Two-Handed from the Knight and to hit very hard with a single weapon. It won't be as ridiculously busted as Dual-Wielding Rapidfire, but it should still be fairly solid and have a lot of passive utility features and survivability. Faris gets the Rod, and Krile will get the Sage's Staff next tablet. Also that means I should have taken a weapon for Bartz since I just equipped Lenna with Knight instead of Samurai and am no longer getting use of Masamune but, shut up, I totally know what I'm doing.
Also, unlocking the weapons triggers a story cutscene!
…is that Exdeath's Legion of Doom?
Now that I'm thinking about it, the game hasn't had a lot of very memorable, iconic bosses so far, and now I'm thinking, maybe it's extremely back-loaded, with all the cool evil monsters in the latter third of the game? All these monsters have unique sprites, which isn't something the games have done before.
Yeah, I'm going to guess that in these "greatest hits of another FF game's bosses" things that the remakes and re-release of the early FFs do, like those dungeons in Dawn of Souls, FFV is represented by monsters from this lot.
Three monsters specifically step forward - I don't recognize them from their sprites alone, so I'm curious who they are. I'm guessing Exdeath is going to send small groups of these fiends to stop us at several points in the story.
FFV really is the Anime Final Fantasy. To some extent this has always been the case, but this is the game which makes the most, and most obvious, use of classic saturday morning shounen/sentai tropes.
Cutscene end, back to your regularly scheduled protagonists.
This is the part where I go kind of crazy.
Immediately after getting the airship, heading to the Sealed Castle to grab the weapons was a fairly obvious lead. After that, though? There are three possible elemental shrines to investigate, multiple towns from both worlds that now probably have updated dialogue and possibly quest content, there's Cid and Mid probably somewhere, there's Bahamut waiting on North Mountain, there's the last Water Crystal shard stuck somewhere, there'saaaaaaah
The game just kicked me in the ADHD and I spend like half an hour just randomly flying around the world not getting anything done because I keep going somewhere, going "no I should do something else first," leaving, going elsewhere…
Did you know apparently I can go the Void right now???
If you fly near the place Castle Tycoon used to be, the Void opens up and swallows the ship!
Which leads us to… a shore that leads to a desert???
I make it a few tiles before I start running into hideous monsters that are a pain to kill - this thing has Maelstrom, which affects multiple characters and brings them down to single-digit HP. I manage to kill it, then I go "wait, shouldn't I be doing other stuff before this place? Might I accidentally trigger the endgame???" and then I teleport out.
Next I go to where Exdeath's Castle used to be; the Big Bridge is still here, but instead of the castle, there is a tiny island at the center of the bridge which leads to…
Which is probably the next place I want to investigate??? Except I'm not ready for another dungeon so I immediately back out.
I keep trying to find Walse in order to get that damned Mime shard, because I have totally forgotten that I just watched it being sucked by the void and that this is not the right direction, which is how I end up there:
Which is some place called the 'Fork Tower' that has a force field barring the way? So I just turn around again and leave.
Also it turns out I was totally wrong when I thought the "village stuck between dimensions" was going to be a town we meet while going to the Interdimensional Rift; it's actually right there on the map!
For people stuck in the void a thousand years ago they seem pretty modern.
Wonder what that's about. Maybe I should go there after catching Bahamut?
The Phantom Town is a puzzle of sorts, with secret passages needing to be found in order to access some of its shops. It sells crystal gear, Fuma Shurikens, and Elixirs, which is pretty good; in fact a short stay in the room would have wiped my savings if not for the Gil Cave - as things stand, I still have 100k gil, though, so thanks Gil Turtle! Part of this goes to paying for the spells it sells - they don't have the highest tier of spells, but they do have the next best thing:
I have no idea if Death, Osmose, Banish and Dispel are worth anything, but this trip was worth it for Arise alone. Arise/Full Life is consistently one of the most important spells in the game; Raise brings KO'd characters back up but always leaves them extremely vulnerable to a follow-up strike until they're healed, whereas Arise just puts a KO'd character back to full health, fully operational and ready to act again. It turns an enemy's effort into a mere delaying action, preventing you from having access to that character for a little while.
Also, Quick appears to be a riff on D&D's Time Stop spell, allowing a character to take two actions at once. It's basically Dualcast, except it costs a lot of MP. But it means now Krile as the White/Time Mage is going to have her own quickfix Dualcast, so… Yeah this is gonna be ridiculously strong I'm pretty sure.
There's one shop I can't seem to access, though - it's blocked by a magic wall of some sorts?
Which may be connected to this guy:
Oh hey, the "run across the world" challenge is back from FF3! I like that one, it's fun. Although I'll need to find where Boko is stuck before I can do it. There is a black chocobo in the Phantom Town, though; approaching it lets us ride it.
Not sure why we want that, seeing as we have the airship, but hey, at least it's there.
Anyway, that's the point where I realized I had a backlog of dozens of screenshots, no firm idea what to actually do first out of the things available to me, and that I was getting stuck in ADHD mode and needed to put the game down and come back later with a clear idea as to which step to take next.
Which, having thought about it in the two days since, is probably going to be getting Bahamut, assuming that's actually possible at this stage!
Also, unlocking the weapons triggers a story cutscene!
…is that Exdeath's Legion of Doom?
Now that I'm thinking about it, the game hasn't had a lot of very memorable, iconic bosses so far, and now I'm thinking, maybe it's extremely back-loaded, with all the cool evil monsters in the latter third of the game? All these monsters have unique sprites, which isn't something the games have done before.
Yeah, I'm going to guess that in these "greatest hits of another FF game's bosses" things that the remakes and re-release of the early FFs do, like those dungeons in Dawn of Souls, FFV is represented by monsters from this lot.
Three monsters specifically step forward - I don't recognize them from their sprites alone, so I'm curious who they are. I'm guessing Exdeath is going to send small groups of these fiends to stop us at several points in the story.
FFV really is the Anime Final Fantasy. To some extent this has always been the case, but this is the game which makes the most, and most obvious, use of classic saturday morning shounen/sentai tropes.
Cutscene end, back to your regularly scheduled protagonists.
This is the part where I go kind of crazy.
Immediately after getting the airship, heading to the Sealed Castle to grab the weapons was a fairly obvious lead. After that, though? There are three possible elemental shrines to investigate, multiple towns from both worlds that now probably have updated dialogue and possibly quest content, there's Cid and Mid probably somewhere, there's Bahamut waiting on North Mountain, there's the last Water Crystal shard stuck somewhere, there'saaaaaaah
The game just kicked me in the ADHD and I spend like half an hour just randomly flying around the world not getting anything done because I keep going somewhere, going "no I should do something else first," leaving, going elsewhere…
Did you know apparently I can go the Void right now???
If you fly near the place Castle Tycoon used to be, the Void opens up and swallows the ship!
Which leads us to… a shore that leads to a desert???
I make it a few tiles before I start running into hideous monsters that are a pain to kill - this thing has Maelstrom, which affects multiple characters and brings them down to single-digit HP. I manage to kill it, then I go "wait, shouldn't I be doing other stuff before this place? Might I accidentally trigger the endgame???" and then I teleport out.
Next I go to where Exdeath's Castle used to be; the Big Bridge is still here, but instead of the castle, there is a tiny island at the center of the bridge which leads to…
Which is probably the next place I want to investigate??? Except I'm not ready for another dungeon so I immediately back out.
I keep trying to find Walse in order to get that damned Mime shard, because I have totally forgotten that I just watched it being sucked by the void and that this is not the right direction, which is how I end up there:
Which is some place called the 'Fork Tower' that has a force field barring the way? So I just turn around again and leave.
Also it turns out I was totally wrong when I thought the "village stuck between dimensions" was going to be a town we meet while going to the Interdimensional Rift; it's actually right there on the map!
For people stuck in the void a thousand years ago they seem pretty modern.
Wonder what that's about. Maybe I should go there after catching Bahamut?
The Phantom Town is a puzzle of sorts, with secret passages needing to be found in order to access some of its shops. It sells crystal gear, Fuma Shurikens, and Elixirs, which is pretty good; in fact a short stay in the room would have wiped my savings if not for the Gil Cave - as things stand, I still have 100k gil, though, so thanks Gil Turtle! Part of this goes to paying for the spells it sells - they don't have the highest tier of spells, but they do have the next best thing:
I have no idea if Death, Osmose, Banish and Dispel are worth anything, but this trip was worth it for Arise alone. Arise/Full Life is consistently one of the most important spells in the game; Raise brings KO'd characters back up but always leaves them extremely vulnerable to a follow-up strike until they're healed, whereas Arise just puts a KO'd character back to full health, fully operational and ready to act again. It turns an enemy's effort into a mere delaying action, preventing you from having access to that character for a little while.
Also, Quick appears to be a riff on D&D's Time Stop spell, allowing a character to take two actions at once. It's basically Dualcast, except it costs a lot of MP. But it means now Krile as the White/Time Mage is going to have her own quickfix Dualcast, so… Yeah this is gonna be ridiculously strong I'm pretty sure.
There's one shop I can't seem to access, though - it's blocked by a magic wall of some sorts?
Which may be connected to this guy:
Oh hey, the "run across the world" challenge is back from FF3! I like that one, it's fun. Although I'll need to find where Boko is stuck before I can do it. There is a black chocobo in the Phantom Town, though; approaching it lets us ride it.
Not sure why we want that, seeing as we have the airship, but hey, at least it's there.
Anyway, that's the point where I realized I had a backlog of dozens of screenshots, no firm idea what to actually do first out of the things available to me, and that I was getting stuck in ADHD mode and needed to put the game down and come back later with a clear idea as to which step to take next.
Which, having thought about it in the two days since, is probably going to be getting Bahamut, assuming that's actually possible at this stage!
Mister Bad Guy
Mr Mercury to friends
- Location
- Bay Area
Gratefully, Exdeath only voids nations that are already apparently empty of anything important if you've been looking around in them.
You've been looking around in them, right?
You've been looking around in them, right?
iirc, the black chocobo can only land on forests, while the airship can't land in forests: so if there's a location that's just forest, the airship can't get there.
Emy
Artificial Defender
Indeed! You can't chain quicks, but you can Dualcast another spell and quick, then use each of the two quick actions for another dualcast, for a total of 5 spells. It can be monstrously expensive, but the action economy is insane.
Hiryu is Just That Magical, I guess, those dragons do all kinds of weird shit in these games from psychic communication to demon expulsion.
It really is. Only disadvantage is not getting ABP while a Freelancer... which you have of course cheated by grinding back in world 2.
As you say, it's a fairly effective scene if you ignore the fact that the world is so small for it. Bartz just having an absolute rage-filled breakdown over his hometown being sucked into the void is pretty memorable.
Had exactly FFII in mind for this part of the LP, yeah. It's the first time since then we've had some serious destruction going on across multiple locations in the game. Closest in FFIV is... probably just showing up at Edward's place and it's already destroyed? Heck pretty sure you can still go back and visit Fabul post-crystal destruction and it's fine.
Honestly going through, Magus Rod is the one weapon there I would say is the absolute first pick. Near every other weapon available has some degree of "well it depends on your class", even if some are more useful than others... but the Magus Rod is straight up "yeah almost every magic class can wield this, also buffs all that elemental magic you're using." My Summoner currently does more damage with other summons than Bahamut for a fraction of the cost.
Can't speak for other games, but in Dawn of Souls at least... I think it's just Gilgamesh and two others.
I'm fairly certain there's not a point of no return/endgame trigger there, but it is the final dungeon so you're probably a bit... underequipped, with none of the top tier spells and only 3 legendary weapons.
Island Shrine is the next location you want to explore, yes, for future update reference.
Well... Death is generally as useful as late-game instant kills ever are in JRPGs (that is basically not at all), Osmose is nice for MP recovery since it only costs 1 MP to cast, Banish is similar to Death but AoE, Dispel is probably useful for certain bosses, and of course... Arise and Quick are pretty self-evident in how useful they are.
Bahamut is possible here and now, yes, and it's honestly pretty easy? Because of all places he decided to go land on Northern Mountain, which still has its original encounters... you know, from like update 3. And in fact, if you go grab Bahamut, you'll be entirely caught up with me.
...Is what I would have said two days ago, finally got off my ass since you were catching up and cleared Phoenix Tower, Island Shrine and Fork Tower to stay ahead.
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Its usually Gilgamesh, two rift bosses, and Atomos, IIRC.
SolipsistSerpent
Endlessly Devouring
I haven't played the game, but I was going to say Gilgamesh and Atomos were memorable. And so was the Gil Turtle, in his own way.
At least from reading your playthrough.
At least from reading your playthrough.
- Location
- the Republic
- Pronouns
- He/They
Hey Omi you forgot to change your ro—
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The minotaurs from the Pyramid of Moore were also apparently considered memorable to somebody, given they got promoted to GFs/summons in FFVIII (Atomos got the same promotion in IX).
HolyDragoon
Call Gespenst!
- Location
- Portugal
Only one of them in the pyramid, the other is still a spoiler.
Also Omi, didn't you just lose a dragon very, very recently?
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
They are also reworked as part of the monster roster for Final Fantasy Tactics, which, considering the very small number of monsters that roster incorporates, does makes them an interesting case of the developers straight up deciding something was iconic. Which is interesting because the actual iconic monster introduced in FFV was something else - which, while appearing in other games in between, only truly got promoted to series staple in FFVIII, as well.
It is. That said, as you saw with the big bridge, unifying the worlds meant that some places which were before inaccessible and/or lead nowhere have now become pathways to interesting locations. Remember when you made it through Jachol cave in Part 7 and were annoyed that going through the cave to the end was a waste of time? You might want to check that again - as well as any other strangely incomplete location you stumbled upon before.
And of course:
This might also be a point worth investigating.
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- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- Singular They
Yeah, Melusine in FFXIV is also "snake lady", although mostly the "lamia" model of a skimpily clad top half of a woman on a snake bottom. She's the boss of Turn 2 of the Second Coil of Bahamut raids, ie T7 for the fan numbering, and is largely a spellcaster too.
Possibly due to (mythological) Medusa references, FFXIV Melusine has lots of petrification mechanics. FFV seems to have avoided that.
Yeah, I can immediately recognize a couple of the raid bosses from FFXIV Omega Deltascape, just from the sprites.
- Location
- NC
I'll just leave these here…
Wonder what that's about. Maybe I should go there after catching Bahamut?
Unless there's some reason I don't remember not to, you might want to consider grabbing the legendary knife/dagger next time you have the chance, just because every class except monk and white mage will be able to use it.