- Pronouns
- He/Him
It has been issued four times that I am aware of. Yours was the first, and the one that prompted its creation. The others have been:
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
It has been issued four times that I am aware of. Yours was the first, and the one that prompted its creation. The others have been:
Oh, are we posting Argath memes?
Final Fantasy Tactics, Part 4.A: Milleuda's Last Stand & Windflat Mill
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hear ye, hear ye! 'Tis the year of our lord 2024, and it has come to pass that Ramza of House Beoulve verily looked upon his works and asked, 'am I truly the hero of this tale?'
The Story So Far: The Kingdom of Ivalice is fresh off the Fifty Years War, a bloody conflict that ended in a stalemate and left it broken, swept by plague, poverty, and discontent among both common people and nobles. The King is dying, a succession crisis is in the making, and in this picture Ramza of House Beoulve, a knight apprentice in the esteemed Order of the Northern Sky, is trying to keep up the honor of his family by following in the footsteps of his famous and respected older brothers. He, his lowborn friend Delita, and a down-on-his-luck noble scion named Argath, have rescued the Marquis of Elmdore from the hands of the Corpse Brigade, only for tragedy to strike as the Brigade abducted Delita's sister Tietra from the Beoulve's own home!
I. Argath's Departure
We return to Castle Eagrose, where we find Dycedarg bedridden, recovering from his injuries in the manse's assault.
Dycedarg: "Leave the cleanup work in our brother's capable hands, and take a well-earned rest. You've done well. Fear not for me… My wounds are not as grave as they might seem."
Ramza: "Lord Brother, what… what of Tietra?"
Dycedarg: "Zalbaag will lead a full-scale assault on the Brigade as soon as their garrison is found."
Ramza: "But-!"
Dycedarg: "The enemy is routed. Less than a score of their number remain. Their leader yet eludes us, but time grows short for Wiegraf Folles."
Ramza: "And for Tietra as well. You would leave her to her fate?"
Dycedarg: "I have taken measures to ensure Tietra's well-being. The attack waits upon her safe return - such time as that may require. Tietra is as a sister to me. I would never turn my back on her."
[Cut to outside.]
I think it's sweet that Dycedarg says this - it would be very easy for him to regard Delita and Tietra's presence in the Beoulve household as some unsightly imposition from his late father that he must grudgingly abide by, but it turns out he really does care about them!
Maybe.
Because that speech is also exactly what a Responsible Authority Figure would say to a bunch of hot-headed teenagers with an established past of breaking orders to chase off after random leads to get them to stay in place while actually planning to attack the Brigade's last stronghold the moment they can, hostage be damned, to make sure they stay put and 'for their own good.'
As someone is just about to point out.
Ramza: "Think matters through, Delita. Where would you even go? You must calm yourself!"
Delita: "Calm myself? My only sister is taken by cutthroats, and you would have me calm?"
Ramza: "I would have you obey reason! We know not where to begin. To search now would be fruitless."
[Delita turns around and seizes Ramza by the throat.]
Delita: "Fruitless? You speak of my sister's life!"
Ramza: "You heard… my lord brother. He said he would not… abandon her. But there's little… We can do. Delita, I… cannot… breathe."
[Delita releases him; Ramza slumps over breathlessly.]
Delita: "Forgive me, Ramza. Are you all right?"
Ramza: "I… I'll be fine… *cough*"
[Argath enters.]
Argath: "I'd not believe a word of that fairy tale if I were you."
Ramza: "You call my brother a liar?"
Argath: "I do. I would not go out of *my* way to rescue some common maid."
Delita: "What did you say?"
Argath: "I said he would be a fool to hold back an army for fear of spilling a few drops of your common blood!"
Delita: "As I thought."
[He decks Argath in the face so hard the prick is knocked onto the ground.]
Top 10 hype anime moments.
Ramza gets up and grabs Delita from behind to keep him from just beating the shit out of Argath, but the noble kid doesn't really appreciate it and proceeds to just go completely mask off, calling Delita a churl who ought to lick their boots and will never amount to anything more than he was born. As Ramza keeps Delita from just kicking Argath's ass all over the Beoulve estate, Argath has the gall to tell him that it's not proper for him to associate with one as low as Delita. Ramza protests that Delita is his friend, as good as his brother, but Argath tells him that this is but a 'plaything of his boyhood' to leave behind now that he's become an adult - I wasn't expecting a reference to 1 Corinthians in my Final Fantasy today, but there it is.
Finally, Delita manages to shove Ramza away, but he does not follow up with another blow; instead, he stares at Argath with controlled anger.
Delita: "Not everyone of high birth is as ill-bred as you. I'll trust to Ramza's judgment."
[He turns around and leaves the scene.]
Ramza: "Begone from my sight! And do not think to return!"
Argath: "Your words cut deep, Ramza. Are we not friends?"
Ramza: [He angrily advances towards him.] "Remove yourself! I'll not ask again!"
[Argath makes a shrugging gesture and elbows past Ramza, stopping on the way out.]
Argath: "The Brigade makes its base at Ziekden. Your lord brother told me himself. You've no hope of breaching the fortress from the fore. Their defenses are too strong. A rear assault is your only chance. Best of luck, my soft-hearted friend. You'll need it."
Ramza: "Begone!"
[Argath shrugs again, then leaves.]
So yeah. There but for the grace of God, goes Argath. Given his behavior during the Milleuda fight, it was only a matter of time until he turned against Delita as well. This is the first time we've seen Ramza genuinely angry, expressing actual strong emotions - it's clear that he does care about Delita; perhaps to the extent of refusing to see that the social reality that divides them exists regardless of his feelings.
Which is to say, it's entirely possible Argath was right, and Ramza's brothers are only humoring him and have no intention to halt their assault on account of some lowborn girl. From Ramza's perspective, it'd be hard to tell - and the consequences of trusting his brother might be too much to bear if his trust is misplaced, not to mention it would require convincing Delita to just sit back and do nothing while his sister is in danger and may end up getting killed because the nobles are willing to sacrifice the hostage.
Which means, once again, it's time for Ramza, Delita, and their small band of Akademy recruits without personality who just follow along their every step to sneak out and handle things on their own.
The map has updated with three new nodes; the Ziekden Fortress is the last one, so we'll have to fight our way through each node in sequence before getting there.
And they're a doozy. But first - new cutscene. As we advance across the Mandelia Plain, a deceptively calm scene plays out, seeing Delita and Ramza together at sunset.
Delita: "It's beautiful, isn't it? Do you think - do you think Tietra might be watching this same sunset?"
Ramza: "Don't worry, Delita. I'm sure she is well."
Delita: "Something's been bothering me, Ramza. For some time now."
Ramza: "Argath's words trouble you. Am I not right?"
Delita: "There are things beyond the power of our changing, Ramza, try though we might."
Ramza: "Do not say that. If a thing can be endeavored, it-"
Delita: "Will endeavor grant me an army? I would save Tietra with these hands, if aught were in my power to do. But I cannot. 'Tis my meager lot in this life…"
[Delita stares at his hand, then at a flower behind it; he picks up a blade of grass. Melancholy music begins to play.]
Delita: "Do you remember, Ramza? When your father showed us how to make a whistle of a blade of grass?"
[He makes a grass whistle, and blows it. After a moment, Ramza does the same. The camera pans up and fades on the sound of his whistle.]
I really love this scene. It's just… Beautiful, aesthetically, it's well-shot and composed and performed, the music is great, the lighting is gorgeous (the only issue I have is that Ramza's hands are like, enormous, what the hell is going on there), and most of all it's doing a wonderful job of showing us that Delita and Ramza are friends, almost brothers, they share memories of the same childhood with Ramza's father, and yet Delita is consumed by entirely understandable worries - about his place in the world, about his sister's safety, about the fact that…
Well, all these men they're leading into battle, they're Ramza's men. Not Delita's. Even now, riding across Gallionne to save his sister, this is something he can only do because of his connection to Ramza, the one of noble blood.
More and more what happened between these two seems to have been a tragedy. There's so little in common between this Delita and the cold, hypocritical rogue from the opening. What happened to him? And how did he end up becoming history's great hero at Ramza's expense?
For now it's time to stock up on new equipment, and enter our next node, the Lenalian Plateau.
II. Lenalian Plateau
With Argath gone, we can once again use our full 5-man party. Pay no attention to the squire in the background I messed up my inputs and grabbed the wrong party member, we'll just start over again.
And there we run into Milleuda. Damn. I'd hoped to put off this inevitable confrontation for a little while longer.
Milleuda: "They guard this way as well. No route is left to us out of these highlands."
Knight: "Then let us lower our weapons and raise the white banner. We gain naught by-"
Milleuda: "If I'm to die, I'd sooner do so by swinging a sword than swinging from the gallows! I'll not be led away in chains!"
[COMMENCE!]
Delita: "Where is Wiegraf? What have you done with Tietra!?"
Milleuda: "Tietra? That Beoulve girl Gragoroth took hostage?"
Delita: "Tietra is my sister, no more a Beoulve than you! Please, she's no value as a hostage! Return her, I beg you!"
Milleuda: "As you nobles return what you take from us? Our lives, our dignity, and all else that you've claimed as your own? We ask nothing more that that you return to us what is ours by right. But you deny us even that! You take and take, until there is naught left. Save your highborn breath. Your words are wind, and no amount of howling will see your sister free!"
Delita: "But I… I'm not-!"
[Battle begins.]
Poor Delita.
Irony seems like the defining character of this exchange. Irony, in that we're not even looking for Milleuda, just trying to sneak through the land to the fortress, and she's trying to do the same thing, so it's pure bad luck that we ran into each other but of course she doesn't believe that; she thinks we're patrolling the roads for her and she has no choice but to fight. Irony, in that Delita's noble connections are coming back to bite him - he really can only get the worst of both worlds, huh? Nobles dismiss him because he's common born and can never stop being so, but other commoners look at him hanging out with Ramza and just assume he's nobility because it's the only reason someone would be chumming it up with the likes of Ramza Beoulve.
Alright then. Little else to do but fight.
Our opposition is made up of three Knights, two Black Mages, and one Time Mage. A fairly balanced party lacking only in healing. A quick check of the enemies' status windows tells us this time, we won't have to worry about that aspect; none of them have either Items or White Magick equipped, Milleuda's party is geared entirely towards offense.
Which I guess makes sense, given that we took out her White Mages in our last encounter. RIP.
As for us, we're running three Knights (I upgraded Delita to one), a Thief, a Time Mage, and a Chemist (pay no attention to the Squire in the picture), so we have less magical offense but we're counting on Thief to be quick and mobile. How does it go for us?
Well, actually fairly well to start with. Milleuda's Mages all step forward so that we're in casting range and start charging up their spells, and unfortunately for them, that's poor timing.
Knight Hester immediately steps forward and hits Milleuda a critical hit, which has the additional effect of knocking her back one tile, and Ramza immediately moves with a Monk-patented punch on her Black Mage, which accounting for monk's crazy high damage and the damage bonus from hitting an enemy mid-charge, is enough to take them out in one hit.
The battlefield is shaped by a central valley between two rocky hills, and Milleuda and the BLM blocked the path; but with the BLM taken out of the picture, Thief Hadrian is able to use his superior Thief range to slip to the back of the enemy line and strike the Time Mage mid-charge as well, his new Blind Knife inflicting her with the Blind status. That's three turns taken before our enemies could cast their spells, taking out their first BLM and dealing boosted damage to their TMM; casting times in this game can really fuck you over.
This window shows the turn order and tells you when a spell will actually take effect if you begin casting on this turn, which is an invaluable resource. Here, for instance, I can check that while the enemy TMM's Slow will fire before Gillian acts, no other enemy will, ensuring she won't be punished the same way I just did the enemy mages.
The Time Mage casts Slow, with both Delita and Hester in its AoE; however, only Delita is successfully affected, with the spell failing to take effect on Hester. Meanwhile, I positioned my own Time Mage on a rocky outcropping overlooking the fight, and I have him cast Haste on the same two targets - canceling Delita's Slow and buffing Hester, coming out net positive in this exchange.
Then Gillian casts Fira at the nearly perfectly cross-shaped formation at the back of the enemy line, striking the TMM, the remaining BLM, and the rear line Knight (KNT?). Only a little over 20 damage each, but across three enemies, that's value - and Hester, now benefiting from Haste, immediately goes again and finishes off the TMM.
At this point: The enemy front-liners took their first turn only to take movement actions and wait, two of the enemy mages started casting only to be immediately taken out before they could do significant damage, I have a Hasted Knight in melee range of their Black Mage, and a Time Mage with Black Magicks overlooking the fight. I'm inside their lines, wrecking shit and demonstrating the importance of movement range and turn order.
Unfortunately, it's their turn next, and they're about to deliver some payback. Moving Hadrian to the enemy back line to kill their BLM was a good move, but it's unfortunately placed the fragile Thief in the middle of the enemy. Immediately, Milleuda, one of their Knight, and their last BLM combined their effort to stab Hadrian from all sides.
Milleuda was inside the spell's AoE, but the AI decided it was worth dealing her some minor damage in order to take out the Thief.
It's not great, but action economy wise we're still on top; it took three of their four remaining units their entire turn just to take out one of mine. I have Ramza move up behind that Knight, hitting her with a back attack for massive damage, and then I have Gillian prove the humble Chemist's usefulness by throwing a Phoenix Down at Hadrian.
Small aside: Here, you can see the predictive window for Osric casting Haste again. As you can see, it's a two-square line rather than a cross. That's because Haste is normally a cross AoE… But it is incredibly sensitive to terrain elevation. Just the slightest drop or rise is enough to negate the AoE entirely, as you can see with Ramza up above, who isn't reached by a Haste centered on Gillian. Because of how much the game uses minor height differentials in all terrain, I've never seen Haste be able to hit more than two characters at once; it would require everyone to be clumped together on perfectly flat ground, which doesn't really happen.
Also, that Haste only has a measly 66% chance of success on Gillian, which I assume must be caused by astrological incompatibility. Very annoying. I end up casting the Haste on Ramza alone, who has better odds of actually receiving the buff.
The rest of the battle is a mop-up. Delita is acting on his own again, but now that he's graduated to Knight, he has a lot of HP and deals significant damage; I leave him to pursue one of the enemy knights in a solo duel while Hester continues to ravage the enemy's rear line, taking out their remaining Black Mage; pretty soon, it's down to Milleuda and her last remaining Knight.
Milleuda: "I mustn't fall! Our struggle is not yet won!"
She strikes down Hadrian - a quirk of the Charge Time mechanics is that if you don't follow up a Phoenix Down with immediate healing, it takes so long for the raised character's turn to come up again that they will most likely go down again before they can act. Nonetheless, presenting a juicy but low-value target like our Thief to draw enemy attacks while our most important units get to continue hitting them is value in and of itself.
Osric's Fire spell takes out the Knight, and Milleuda is the last woman standing.
We immediately raised Hadrian back again anyway.
Ramza: "Why this struggle? To what purpose do you fight? Have we wronged you? Have we somehow made you to suffer? I do not understand what fuels your hatred."
Milleuda: "It is enough that you can stand before me in ignorance of the misdeeds done us. You may not see the world beyond your high walls, but that does not mean they mark its boundaries. It may well be you've done no wrong. It is your place in the world that drives my hatred on. You bear the name Beoulve, and that name is my enemy."
I really love these little snippets of mid-fight dialogue - they breathe a lot of life into these complex and fairly dry tactical battles, reminding us that these are people who are fighting for their lives, caught in a storm of passions and grudges and hatred. And yet, it seems very much like they're missable - they appear triggered by some kind of flag, likely related to Milleuda's HP, or how many members of her party are still alive, or how many turns she's taken. Which would make it incredibly easy to miss these beats of characterization by doing too well!
(Also God but "You bear the name Beoulve, and that name is my enemy" goes so hard.)
I did not specifically intend to take out Milleuda's entire party first in spite of defeating her being enough to meet the objective. The enemies were just strong enough offensively but vulnerable enough defensively that it seemed a tactically better better bet to opportunistically take out their mages first, then their Knights so that I would be free to focus on Milleuda at minimal risk to my party members.
I just happened to kill all her companions first and leave her the last one standing. And that's gameplay-narrative interaction, baby.
Even alone and cornered by my three physically strongest party members, Milleuda remains a terrifying force. She has a shield and Counter, meaning every attack has a chance to be blocked and she retaliates with massive physical damage. Taking out her party first was probably the right call; in fact she manages to withstand Hester, Ramza and Delita's combined assault long enough for a last defiant speech.
Milleuda: "I am a soldier of the Corpse Brigade! I will not turn and run!"
Ramza: "Lay down your weapon, Milleuda! The battle is lost! Sheathe your blade, and let us talk! Surely we can find some common ground! I will speak to my brother - even Duke Larg himself! You must trust me!"
Milleuda: "False words sound ever sweet, but they are a siren song. I've heard my share of noble lies. I'll hear no more!"
Ramza: "My words are not false!"
Milleuda's last action in battle cements her as our fiercest opponent so far. She parried Delita's last attack and countered him hard enough that his AI caused him to flee to the edge of the battlefield. This free'd up a square of movement, allowing Milleuda to escape encirclement, flank Ramza, and hit him with a devastating 42-damage attack, taking him out. She managed to defeat our hero.
Unfortunately, the action economy prevails. Gillian throws a Phoenix Down at Ramza, undoing Milleuda's achievement, and the last blow is sealed by our least honorable unit: Hadrian, using this Thief mobility to move to Milleuda's back for a 100% accuracy backstab.
The bloody deed is done.
Generally speaking, the Final Fantasy series has been relatively conservative with the twist of 'upbeat victory fanfare plays after awful story development, creating dramatic irony,' likely because they realize that overusing it would become a cliché in its own right. But hitting the victory fanfare on this fight definitely felt like a gut punch, goddamn.
…
The thing is Milleuda is right, in a way, isn't she? I don't mean generally about the class divide, that much is obvious - I mean we, the reader, know that Ramza is sincere when he offers her to surrender and take her peacefully and convince his brothers to spare her life…
…but just because he would sincerely attempt to do so doesn't mean he would succeed. We know what fate the Order of the Northern Sky has in mind for the Corpse Brigade: Death. They only ever talk about them in terms of wiping them out, killing them to the last, our very first mission is to cut off escape to a band in rout and kill them all.
I don't think Ramza has any leverage with which to convince his brothers not to execute Milleuda the moment they have their hands on her, as an example. And that's after trying to use her as a hostage to try and drag Wiegraf out of hiding. I don't think there was a way out of this for her that wasn't "Ramza just steps out and lets her escape unharmed," and I don't think Ramza would have been willing to do that even if she'd been willing to leave without a fight, which… I mean, she really does hate the nobility.
"What am I doing? What have I become?"
Yeah, Delita. Yeah.
Our next destination is the Windflat Mill, but first, we'll backtrack a little back to town to secure some supplies. The shops have updated again; Gariland now sells the Mage Masher, a knife that carries the Silence status effect, making it ideal for a thief to use to disable enemy mages. There's also new clothing and armor, and some of our characters have acquired enough JP to learn new abilities - Ramza can now learn Cyclone, for instance, an attack that hits all adjacent enemies. Useful! No big changes in party composition or capabilities so far, though.
We spend most of our hard-earned cash, save the game, and move on.
Cut for image count.
The Story So Far: The Kingdom of Ivalice is fresh off the Fifty Years War, a bloody conflict that ended in a stalemate and left it broken, swept by plague, poverty, and discontent among both common people and nobles. The King is dying, a succession crisis is in the making, and in this picture Ramza of House Beoulve, a knight apprentice in the esteemed Order of the Northern Sky, is trying to keep up the honor of his family by following in the footsteps of his famous and respected older brothers. He, his lowborn friend Delita, and a down-on-his-luck noble scion named Argath, have rescued the Marquis of Elmdore from the hands of the Corpse Brigade, only for tragedy to strike as the Brigade abducted Delita's sister Tietra from the Beoulve's own home!
I. Argath's Departure
We return to Castle Eagrose, where we find Dycedarg bedridden, recovering from his injuries in the manse's assault.
Dycedarg: "Leave the cleanup work in our brother's capable hands, and take a well-earned rest. You've done well. Fear not for me… My wounds are not as grave as they might seem."
Ramza: "Lord Brother, what… what of Tietra?"
Dycedarg: "Zalbaag will lead a full-scale assault on the Brigade as soon as their garrison is found."
Ramza: "But-!"
Dycedarg: "The enemy is routed. Less than a score of their number remain. Their leader yet eludes us, but time grows short for Wiegraf Folles."
Ramza: "And for Tietra as well. You would leave her to her fate?"
Dycedarg: "I have taken measures to ensure Tietra's well-being. The attack waits upon her safe return - such time as that may require. Tietra is as a sister to me. I would never turn my back on her."
[Cut to outside.]
I think it's sweet that Dycedarg says this - it would be very easy for him to regard Delita and Tietra's presence in the Beoulve household as some unsightly imposition from his late father that he must grudgingly abide by, but it turns out he really does care about them!
Maybe.
Because that speech is also exactly what a Responsible Authority Figure would say to a bunch of hot-headed teenagers with an established past of breaking orders to chase off after random leads to get them to stay in place while actually planning to attack the Brigade's last stronghold the moment they can, hostage be damned, to make sure they stay put and 'for their own good.'
As someone is just about to point out.
Ramza: "Think matters through, Delita. Where would you even go? You must calm yourself!"
Delita: "Calm myself? My only sister is taken by cutthroats, and you would have me calm?"
Ramza: "I would have you obey reason! We know not where to begin. To search now would be fruitless."
[Delita turns around and seizes Ramza by the throat.]
Delita: "Fruitless? You speak of my sister's life!"
Ramza: "You heard… my lord brother. He said he would not… abandon her. But there's little… We can do. Delita, I… cannot… breathe."
[Delita releases him; Ramza slumps over breathlessly.]
Delita: "Forgive me, Ramza. Are you all right?"
Ramza: "I… I'll be fine… *cough*"
[Argath enters.]
Argath: "I'd not believe a word of that fairy tale if I were you."
Ramza: "You call my brother a liar?"
Argath: "I do. I would not go out of *my* way to rescue some common maid."
Delita: "What did you say?"
Argath: "I said he would be a fool to hold back an army for fear of spilling a few drops of your common blood!"
Delita: "As I thought."
[He decks Argath in the face so hard the prick is knocked onto the ground.]
Top 10 hype anime moments.
Ramza gets up and grabs Delita from behind to keep him from just beating the shit out of Argath, but the noble kid doesn't really appreciate it and proceeds to just go completely mask off, calling Delita a churl who ought to lick their boots and will never amount to anything more than he was born. As Ramza keeps Delita from just kicking Argath's ass all over the Beoulve estate, Argath has the gall to tell him that it's not proper for him to associate with one as low as Delita. Ramza protests that Delita is his friend, as good as his brother, but Argath tells him that this is but a 'plaything of his boyhood' to leave behind now that he's become an adult - I wasn't expecting a reference to 1 Corinthians in my Final Fantasy today, but there it is.
Finally, Delita manages to shove Ramza away, but he does not follow up with another blow; instead, he stares at Argath with controlled anger.
Delita: "Not everyone of high birth is as ill-bred as you. I'll trust to Ramza's judgment."
[He turns around and leaves the scene.]
Ramza: "Begone from my sight! And do not think to return!"
Argath: "Your words cut deep, Ramza. Are we not friends?"
Ramza: [He angrily advances towards him.] "Remove yourself! I'll not ask again!"
[Argath makes a shrugging gesture and elbows past Ramza, stopping on the way out.]
Argath: "The Brigade makes its base at Ziekden. Your lord brother told me himself. You've no hope of breaching the fortress from the fore. Their defenses are too strong. A rear assault is your only chance. Best of luck, my soft-hearted friend. You'll need it."
Ramza: "Begone!"
[Argath shrugs again, then leaves.]
So yeah. There but for the grace of God, goes Argath. Given his behavior during the Milleuda fight, it was only a matter of time until he turned against Delita as well. This is the first time we've seen Ramza genuinely angry, expressing actual strong emotions - it's clear that he does care about Delita; perhaps to the extent of refusing to see that the social reality that divides them exists regardless of his feelings.
Which is to say, it's entirely possible Argath was right, and Ramza's brothers are only humoring him and have no intention to halt their assault on account of some lowborn girl. From Ramza's perspective, it'd be hard to tell - and the consequences of trusting his brother might be too much to bear if his trust is misplaced, not to mention it would require convincing Delita to just sit back and do nothing while his sister is in danger and may end up getting killed because the nobles are willing to sacrifice the hostage.
Which means, once again, it's time for Ramza, Delita, and their small band of Akademy recruits without personality who just follow along their every step to sneak out and handle things on their own.
The map has updated with three new nodes; the Ziekden Fortress is the last one, so we'll have to fight our way through each node in sequence before getting there.
And they're a doozy. But first - new cutscene. As we advance across the Mandelia Plain, a deceptively calm scene plays out, seeing Delita and Ramza together at sunset.
Delita: "It's beautiful, isn't it? Do you think - do you think Tietra might be watching this same sunset?"
Ramza: "Don't worry, Delita. I'm sure she is well."
Delita: "Something's been bothering me, Ramza. For some time now."
Ramza: "Argath's words trouble you. Am I not right?"
Delita: "There are things beyond the power of our changing, Ramza, try though we might."
Ramza: "Do not say that. If a thing can be endeavored, it-"
Delita: "Will endeavor grant me an army? I would save Tietra with these hands, if aught were in my power to do. But I cannot. 'Tis my meager lot in this life…"
[Delita stares at his hand, then at a flower behind it; he picks up a blade of grass. Melancholy music begins to play.]
Delita: "Do you remember, Ramza? When your father showed us how to make a whistle of a blade of grass?"
[He makes a grass whistle, and blows it. After a moment, Ramza does the same. The camera pans up and fades on the sound of his whistle.]
I really love this scene. It's just… Beautiful, aesthetically, it's well-shot and composed and performed, the music is great, the lighting is gorgeous (the only issue I have is that Ramza's hands are like, enormous, what the hell is going on there), and most of all it's doing a wonderful job of showing us that Delita and Ramza are friends, almost brothers, they share memories of the same childhood with Ramza's father, and yet Delita is consumed by entirely understandable worries - about his place in the world, about his sister's safety, about the fact that…
Well, all these men they're leading into battle, they're Ramza's men. Not Delita's. Even now, riding across Gallionne to save his sister, this is something he can only do because of his connection to Ramza, the one of noble blood.
More and more what happened between these two seems to have been a tragedy. There's so little in common between this Delita and the cold, hypocritical rogue from the opening. What happened to him? And how did he end up becoming history's great hero at Ramza's expense?
For now it's time to stock up on new equipment, and enter our next node, the Lenalian Plateau.
II. Lenalian Plateau
With Argath gone, we can once again use our full 5-man party. Pay no attention to the squire in the background I messed up my inputs and grabbed the wrong party member, we'll just start over again.
And there we run into Milleuda. Damn. I'd hoped to put off this inevitable confrontation for a little while longer.
Milleuda: "They guard this way as well. No route is left to us out of these highlands."
Knight: "Then let us lower our weapons and raise the white banner. We gain naught by-"
Milleuda: "If I'm to die, I'd sooner do so by swinging a sword than swinging from the gallows! I'll not be led away in chains!"
[COMMENCE!]
Delita: "Where is Wiegraf? What have you done with Tietra!?"
Milleuda: "Tietra? That Beoulve girl Gragoroth took hostage?"
Delita: "Tietra is my sister, no more a Beoulve than you! Please, she's no value as a hostage! Return her, I beg you!"
Milleuda: "As you nobles return what you take from us? Our lives, our dignity, and all else that you've claimed as your own? We ask nothing more that that you return to us what is ours by right. But you deny us even that! You take and take, until there is naught left. Save your highborn breath. Your words are wind, and no amount of howling will see your sister free!"
Delita: "But I… I'm not-!"
[Battle begins.]
Poor Delita.
Irony seems like the defining character of this exchange. Irony, in that we're not even looking for Milleuda, just trying to sneak through the land to the fortress, and she's trying to do the same thing, so it's pure bad luck that we ran into each other but of course she doesn't believe that; she thinks we're patrolling the roads for her and she has no choice but to fight. Irony, in that Delita's noble connections are coming back to bite him - he really can only get the worst of both worlds, huh? Nobles dismiss him because he's common born and can never stop being so, but other commoners look at him hanging out with Ramza and just assume he's nobility because it's the only reason someone would be chumming it up with the likes of Ramza Beoulve.
Alright then. Little else to do but fight.
Our opposition is made up of three Knights, two Black Mages, and one Time Mage. A fairly balanced party lacking only in healing. A quick check of the enemies' status windows tells us this time, we won't have to worry about that aspect; none of them have either Items or White Magick equipped, Milleuda's party is geared entirely towards offense.
Which I guess makes sense, given that we took out her White Mages in our last encounter. RIP.
As for us, we're running three Knights (I upgraded Delita to one), a Thief, a Time Mage, and a Chemist (pay no attention to the Squire in the picture), so we have less magical offense but we're counting on Thief to be quick and mobile. How does it go for us?
Well, actually fairly well to start with. Milleuda's Mages all step forward so that we're in casting range and start charging up their spells, and unfortunately for them, that's poor timing.
Knight Hester immediately steps forward and hits Milleuda a critical hit, which has the additional effect of knocking her back one tile, and Ramza immediately moves with a Monk-patented punch on her Black Mage, which accounting for monk's crazy high damage and the damage bonus from hitting an enemy mid-charge, is enough to take them out in one hit.
The battlefield is shaped by a central valley between two rocky hills, and Milleuda and the BLM blocked the path; but with the BLM taken out of the picture, Thief Hadrian is able to use his superior Thief range to slip to the back of the enemy line and strike the Time Mage mid-charge as well, his new Blind Knife inflicting her with the Blind status. That's three turns taken before our enemies could cast their spells, taking out their first BLM and dealing boosted damage to their TMM; casting times in this game can really fuck you over.
This window shows the turn order and tells you when a spell will actually take effect if you begin casting on this turn, which is an invaluable resource. Here, for instance, I can check that while the enemy TMM's Slow will fire before Gillian acts, no other enemy will, ensuring she won't be punished the same way I just did the enemy mages.
The Time Mage casts Slow, with both Delita and Hester in its AoE; however, only Delita is successfully affected, with the spell failing to take effect on Hester. Meanwhile, I positioned my own Time Mage on a rocky outcropping overlooking the fight, and I have him cast Haste on the same two targets - canceling Delita's Slow and buffing Hester, coming out net positive in this exchange.
Then Gillian casts Fira at the nearly perfectly cross-shaped formation at the back of the enemy line, striking the TMM, the remaining BLM, and the rear line Knight (KNT?). Only a little over 20 damage each, but across three enemies, that's value - and Hester, now benefiting from Haste, immediately goes again and finishes off the TMM.
At this point: The enemy front-liners took their first turn only to take movement actions and wait, two of the enemy mages started casting only to be immediately taken out before they could do significant damage, I have a Hasted Knight in melee range of their Black Mage, and a Time Mage with Black Magicks overlooking the fight. I'm inside their lines, wrecking shit and demonstrating the importance of movement range and turn order.
Unfortunately, it's their turn next, and they're about to deliver some payback. Moving Hadrian to the enemy back line to kill their BLM was a good move, but it's unfortunately placed the fragile Thief in the middle of the enemy. Immediately, Milleuda, one of their Knight, and their last BLM combined their effort to stab Hadrian from all sides.
Milleuda was inside the spell's AoE, but the AI decided it was worth dealing her some minor damage in order to take out the Thief.
It's not great, but action economy wise we're still on top; it took three of their four remaining units their entire turn just to take out one of mine. I have Ramza move up behind that Knight, hitting her with a back attack for massive damage, and then I have Gillian prove the humble Chemist's usefulness by throwing a Phoenix Down at Hadrian.
Small aside: Here, you can see the predictive window for Osric casting Haste again. As you can see, it's a two-square line rather than a cross. That's because Haste is normally a cross AoE… But it is incredibly sensitive to terrain elevation. Just the slightest drop or rise is enough to negate the AoE entirely, as you can see with Ramza up above, who isn't reached by a Haste centered on Gillian. Because of how much the game uses minor height differentials in all terrain, I've never seen Haste be able to hit more than two characters at once; it would require everyone to be clumped together on perfectly flat ground, which doesn't really happen.
Also, that Haste only has a measly 66% chance of success on Gillian, which I assume must be caused by astrological incompatibility. Very annoying. I end up casting the Haste on Ramza alone, who has better odds of actually receiving the buff.
The rest of the battle is a mop-up. Delita is acting on his own again, but now that he's graduated to Knight, he has a lot of HP and deals significant damage; I leave him to pursue one of the enemy knights in a solo duel while Hester continues to ravage the enemy's rear line, taking out their remaining Black Mage; pretty soon, it's down to Milleuda and her last remaining Knight.
Milleuda: "I mustn't fall! Our struggle is not yet won!"
She strikes down Hadrian - a quirk of the Charge Time mechanics is that if you don't follow up a Phoenix Down with immediate healing, it takes so long for the raised character's turn to come up again that they will most likely go down again before they can act. Nonetheless, presenting a juicy but low-value target like our Thief to draw enemy attacks while our most important units get to continue hitting them is value in and of itself.
Osric's Fire spell takes out the Knight, and Milleuda is the last woman standing.
We immediately raised Hadrian back again anyway.
Ramza: "Why this struggle? To what purpose do you fight? Have we wronged you? Have we somehow made you to suffer? I do not understand what fuels your hatred."
Milleuda: "It is enough that you can stand before me in ignorance of the misdeeds done us. You may not see the world beyond your high walls, but that does not mean they mark its boundaries. It may well be you've done no wrong. It is your place in the world that drives my hatred on. You bear the name Beoulve, and that name is my enemy."
I really love these little snippets of mid-fight dialogue - they breathe a lot of life into these complex and fairly dry tactical battles, reminding us that these are people who are fighting for their lives, caught in a storm of passions and grudges and hatred. And yet, it seems very much like they're missable - they appear triggered by some kind of flag, likely related to Milleuda's HP, or how many members of her party are still alive, or how many turns she's taken. Which would make it incredibly easy to miss these beats of characterization by doing too well!
(Also God but "You bear the name Beoulve, and that name is my enemy" goes so hard.)
I did not specifically intend to take out Milleuda's entire party first in spite of defeating her being enough to meet the objective. The enemies were just strong enough offensively but vulnerable enough defensively that it seemed a tactically better better bet to opportunistically take out their mages first, then their Knights so that I would be free to focus on Milleuda at minimal risk to my party members.
I just happened to kill all her companions first and leave her the last one standing. And that's gameplay-narrative interaction, baby.
Even alone and cornered by my three physically strongest party members, Milleuda remains a terrifying force. She has a shield and Counter, meaning every attack has a chance to be blocked and she retaliates with massive physical damage. Taking out her party first was probably the right call; in fact she manages to withstand Hester, Ramza and Delita's combined assault long enough for a last defiant speech.
Milleuda: "I am a soldier of the Corpse Brigade! I will not turn and run!"
Ramza: "Lay down your weapon, Milleuda! The battle is lost! Sheathe your blade, and let us talk! Surely we can find some common ground! I will speak to my brother - even Duke Larg himself! You must trust me!"
Milleuda: "False words sound ever sweet, but they are a siren song. I've heard my share of noble lies. I'll hear no more!"
Ramza: "My words are not false!"
Milleuda's last action in battle cements her as our fiercest opponent so far. She parried Delita's last attack and countered him hard enough that his AI caused him to flee to the edge of the battlefield. This free'd up a square of movement, allowing Milleuda to escape encirclement, flank Ramza, and hit him with a devastating 42-damage attack, taking him out. She managed to defeat our hero.
Unfortunately, the action economy prevails. Gillian throws a Phoenix Down at Ramza, undoing Milleuda's achievement, and the last blow is sealed by our least honorable unit: Hadrian, using this Thief mobility to move to Milleuda's back for a 100% accuracy backstab.
The bloody deed is done.
Generally speaking, the Final Fantasy series has been relatively conservative with the twist of 'upbeat victory fanfare plays after awful story development, creating dramatic irony,' likely because they realize that overusing it would become a cliché in its own right. But hitting the victory fanfare on this fight definitely felt like a gut punch, goddamn.
…
The thing is Milleuda is right, in a way, isn't she? I don't mean generally about the class divide, that much is obvious - I mean we, the reader, know that Ramza is sincere when he offers her to surrender and take her peacefully and convince his brothers to spare her life…
…but just because he would sincerely attempt to do so doesn't mean he would succeed. We know what fate the Order of the Northern Sky has in mind for the Corpse Brigade: Death. They only ever talk about them in terms of wiping them out, killing them to the last, our very first mission is to cut off escape to a band in rout and kill them all.
I don't think Ramza has any leverage with which to convince his brothers not to execute Milleuda the moment they have their hands on her, as an example. And that's after trying to use her as a hostage to try and drag Wiegraf out of hiding. I don't think there was a way out of this for her that wasn't "Ramza just steps out and lets her escape unharmed," and I don't think Ramza would have been willing to do that even if she'd been willing to leave without a fight, which… I mean, she really does hate the nobility.
"What am I doing? What have I become?"
Yeah, Delita. Yeah.
Our next destination is the Windflat Mill, but first, we'll backtrack a little back to town to secure some supplies. The shops have updated again; Gariland now sells the Mage Masher, a knife that carries the Silence status effect, making it ideal for a thief to use to disable enemy mages. There's also new clothing and armor, and some of our characters have acquired enough JP to learn new abilities - Ramza can now learn Cyclone, for instance, an attack that hits all adjacent enemies. Useful! No big changes in party composition or capabilities so far, though.
We spend most of our hard-earned cash, save the game, and move on.
Cut for image count.
Final Fantasy Tactics, Part 4.B: Milleuda's Last Stand & Windflat Mill
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
III. Windflat Mill (Abject Defeat)
As soon as we enter the next node, a new cutscene plays. Wiegraf is challenging Gragoroth over his recent actions.
Wiegraf: "Why have you kidnapped this girl?"
Gragoroth: "We had to take a hostage - there was no other way to escape."
Wiegraf: "Then why not release her once you were clear of your pursuers? Do not tell me this madness has taken even you!"
Gragoroth: "I am no Gustav, if that is what you fear! Think, Wiegraf. We've lost the greater part of our number, and the Northern Order draws upon us from all sides. She is of Beoulve blood. A hundred swords - a thousand! - could not buy our freedom with such ease!"
Wiegraf: "So we fly - what then? Know you some happy haven in which we may alight? If we flee, they win once more. As they have always won. We must make for our children a fairer future than the past you and I have known. They must not suffer as we do! The stone we cast might raise only the smallest of waves, but see how they crash upon the shore! Waves rich with our blood…"
Gragoroth: "Then you order us to our deaths!?"
Wiegraf: "If by our deaths a single drop of noble blood should water the earth, they shall not be in vain."
Gragoroth: "Foolishness! The only blood the earth will drink will be our own."
Wiegraf: "The remainder of our forces should yet be safe in our fastness at Ziekden. We must rejoin them - together we have the strength to strike!"
Gragoroth: "And if they are already dead?"
[At this moment, another Brigade member enters.]
I believe this is the first time I've ever run into 'fastness' used in the sense of 'a fortified or secure place.' Meriam-Webster doesn't list it as 'archaic' but the Cambridge dictionary does list it as 'literary'; this is an obnoxiously rare use of the word. It's rooted in the older, alternate meaning of 'fast' as 'fixed, firmly in place,' which is what gave us the word steadfast and the phrase hold fast.
I'm not sure what to make of Wiegraf in this exchange. He seems to oscillate between a man of honor who may be idealistic to a fault, unwilling to resort to tactics like hostage taking and anything 'dishonorable,' and a bloody-minded fanatic who is willing to sacrifice all his men for 'a single drop of noble blood to water the earth,' and I find these hard to reconcile.
With that said, this scene once again dabbles in dramatic irony - Wiegraf is arguing with Gragoroth about the sacrifices necessary to bring about a better world for commoner children even if they never live to see it… While Tietra, one of those very commoner children, is sitting right there tied up and being used as a hostage, unacknowledged by the two men who merely assume she is noble.
It's almost like the game is trying to say something about the divide between nobles and commoners is entirely a social construct that cannot be seen from merely looking at someone. A social construct with enormous power, to be sure - but whatever Argath and Milleuda may think, you cannot in fact tell noble from lowborn merely from looking at them.
The monk who enters the room informs Wiegraf of the grave news: Milleuda is dead. He can't believe it at first, but there is no time to reckon with this, no time to grieve: The very same company that slew her is approaching now. Wiegraf orders everyone to live and make for the Ziekden fortress and to leave Tietra behind, but it's already too late.
We're here.
Wiegraf valiantly goes to hold us back. But Gragoroth says that though he will run, he does not mean to die - then gives a thoughtful glance at Tietra.
Yeah, he's going to grab her and take her with him as he leaves, zero doubts there.
I really like how before they get eyes on them and it turns out our party is a bunch of teenagers, we are framed as a horrifying force, a looming death on the horizon that already took Wiegraf's sister and is arriving faster than they could anticipate, faster than they could prepare for, and with it the promise of death. It's only Chapter 1, and we're already the harbingers of doom, the faceless terror of state oppression, the bloody sword of Ivalice's aristocracy. And they dread us accordingly.
Unfortunately, that means Wiegraf has decided he needed to step out and face us himself.
Which, hm.
Well.
Windmill Flat is a knife fight in a phone booth. The map is so small, we're only allowed to take four characters instead of five, even though we no longer have Argath to fill the empty slot. Not being sure what to look for, I decide to bench Osric the Time Mage for now and take Hadrian (Thief), Gillian (Chemist) and Hester (Knight). The enemy is loaded up exclusively on physical combat classes (which, as it'll quickly turn out, isn't the same thing as melee classes), with two Monks, a Knight, a Chocobo, and Wiegraf himself. That's five characters to our five, so in theory we're evenly matched. In practice, they are on average higher level than we are, and they start from a much stronger tactical position.
It's not going to get any better any time soon. But first, it's time for dramatic introductions.
Wiegraf: "Your faces are known to me. But I did not know that you would one day kill my sister. Milleuda deserved a better death - they did not even send proper knights to kill her!"
Ramza: "She was your sister… I am sorry."
Wiegraf: "I will not flee before her murderers. I'll venge Milleuda's death or die in the trying!"
[COMMENCE!]
Delita: "My sister, Tietra - you will set her free!"
Wiegraf: "Your sister? Then you are a Beoulve, yes?"
Ramza: "He is not. If it is a Beoulve you seek, address yourself to me!"
Wiegraf: "So, Grogaroth has erred. But surely the girl must hold some connection with House Beoulve?"
Ramza: "You draw no distinction between our house and those who deal with us?"
Wiegraf: "Should I? Well, it matters not. There was no question as to her release. We make no habit of holding hostages. But first we've a score to settle. You will see her free - if you live to see aught at all!"
This is the first time we see meaningful pushback against Wiegraf's ideas - the fact that he treats commoners who deal with noble houses and the houses themselves darkens our picture of the man. To be sure, he can't really approach it any other way - willing commoners are vital to the nobility's power, after all; merchants who trade with them, soldiers who serve in their armies that can't be composed of only knights, labourers, servants, the maids and cooks and tailors that enable their lifestyle. But by the same token, once you've designated all commoners who deal with nobles willingly as acceptable target, you've pretty much designated everyone who isn't in active rebellion against the nobility an acceptable target. At least a guy like Gustav or Gragoroth just wouldn't care, but Wiegraf has to construct an argument as to why this is Fine Actually, and he's on shakier grounds there than he was before.
Unfortunately for us he has a perfect out of any tough rhetorical trap and it's JUDGMENT SWORD.
Wiegraf is capable of ranged, AoE attacks using his sword. Their animation should be familiar. After all…
…Wiegraf's class is White Knight.
There are ways to tell a player "you are not the hero here," and literally calling your opponent the White Knight is honestly pretty up there, jesus. That also makes him a mechanical mirror of Agrias from the prologue, capable of devastating damage at range, which he is all too content to use from atop this cliff where our characters cannot attack him head-on. Our only way up is this precarious, one-tile wide natural staircase hugging the side of windmill; only one character can advance at a time, severely constraining our movement.
This would be bad enough, but look at this fucking Chocobo.
THE CHOCOBO'S NAME IS BOCO. IT'S THE SAME AS BARTZ'S CHOCOBO FROM FFV. WE'RE TOAST.
The UI doing its best to broadcast how fucked we are aside, tactically this is a nightmare. Delita is, inexplicably, my fastest character; that means he acts first, immediately stepping forward towards the enemy but unable to get close enough to attack them. Wiegraf instantly drops the Judgment Sword on his face, deleting half his HP, and Boco dashes in and hits him with Choco Beak for an extra 40 damage, instantly taking him out.
So, I haven't acted yet, and I'm already down one party member out of five, leaving me in a 4 vs 5 where one of the enemies is a lv 9 White Knight. For reference, Ramza himself is barely lv 7, and he's my highest level character.
So. Going great.
It's fine. All we have to do is proceed methodically without overextending ourselves with needless risk. For instance, having Hester and Ramza move forward, flank Boco, and turn him into drumsticks should ease off some pressure from the beast, and Gillian can step in immediately after to toss a Phoenix Down at Delita.
In the process, we move Hadrian over to the staircase. Just like its single-file width blocks us from advancing more than one at a time, it also blocks the enemy. A Thief isn't exactly the ideal body to block an approaching Monk, especially since he has the Mage Masher (useless in this fight) rather than the blinding dagger. Whatever. This is fine.
Oh he has more fucking magic sword tricks. Fantastic.
And then, to my surprise, my entire plan comes crashing down when this happens:
It turns out. The Monk. Can just. Hop down. From the staircase. Which I cannot climb up. So it just purely advantages the opposing side and I cannot, in fact, use it for my own advantage.
Said Monk then reveals she has a move called Shockwave, which is ANOTHER FUCKING RANGED PHYSICAL ATTACK, which ignores my lines to go hit Delita in the back row at the other end of the battlefield where he was supposed to be safe until Gillian could throw a Potion at him. But no. That monk has better range than an Archer and Delita dies instantly, again.
It's not all bad. With the monk out of the way, Hadrian is actually able to move up to behind that Knight at the top of the stairs to stab her in the back, and Ramza and Hester are now both within melee range of both enemy Monks, so they move to attack the most injured one and takes her out. The fight is now a much more even 4 vs 4.
With just one problem. In doing so, I had Hester and Ramza inadvertently position themselves on two branches of an imaginary cross.
Wiegraf uses Judgment Sword, which hits in an X-pattern, to hit them both at once. Hester is in critical condition. Ramza, who just got hit in retaliation by the last enemy monk, is down.
In desperation, I have Hester move to Wiegraf's back and Hadrian get down, both of them ganging up to stab him hoping to rush the win condition. Unfortunately, Wiegraf has Counter.
His turn never comes back around - he takes out both Hadrian and Hester with Counters alone. That leaves Gillian as my only surviving character. Because she has Items, I could drag this out for a couple more rounds, give or take ten minutes, but the outcome is pretty settled. I reload my last save.
This was a crushing defeat. Wiegraf is a beast, and he comes packaged with an absolutely brutal set of allies for the battlefield we meet him in. They're all physical classes, but Wiegraf and the Monks are all capable of long range attacks, AoEs, and Wiegraf himself can do long range AoE. What a nightmare.
Let's do some brief tweaks before we try again…
Gillian has actually earned enough JP to learn Hi-Potion. Hi-Potions heal 70 HP a pop, and are now available in shops, so let's spend a little on those and try again. Hadrian wasn't performing very well as a Thief, so maybe having a support/damage class like Osric's Time Mage with Black Magicks equipped will do the trick.
Here, you can see the single-file approach I was talking about earlier, the only way I can approach Wiegraf if he doesn't decide to come down from his perch. Hester can at least tank any damage from the front, but Ramza and Osric are wide open to flanking, and everyone is equally vulnerable to ranged attacks. Also, Delita died before my first turn yet again. Not only that, but I've made a terrible discovery: Judgment Sword inflicts Stop. Even if Delita is somehow able to survive the initial onslaught to which he opens himself up on turn 1, Stop just freezes him, completely unable to do anything and taking extra damage. Stop eventually wears off, but it's bad news.
If I recounted every defeat Wiegraf handed me we would be here all weak, so let's cut this short:
I Haste Ramza so he can move faster and get in more hits, which allows him to move ahead of the group to attack Wiegraf, which means he immediately eats a Counter then gets ganged up on by the Knight and Monk and dies before I could KO a single enemy. The fight is now a 3v5 and I'm down my best fighter, no point seeing it through, reload.
Lesson learned: Haste is not always a benefit if you use your increased speed to increase your exposure to enemy attacks.
At this point, I'm starting to wonder… Is this even possible? Is this fight possible, at this level, for me? I'm sure an experienced player would be entirely capable of winning this fight with this team at this level, but I'm not an experienced player, I'm still learning the game. Is the solution to just grind for a while? Outleveling my opposition seems like a pretty poor way to engage with a tactics game.
At the same time, Ramza is two levels behind Wiegraf, and the rest of the team is even lower level than Ramza, and I can't control Delita who always gets killed on the first turn before I can act. It really does seem like maybe I just need slightly stronger units.
I try it again a couple of times at current level, shuffling my party members around a little, but nothing's working. Truth be told, a couple of these runs are complete duds where I quit because I realized something stupid like "I forgot to buy Gillian's Hi-Potion Ability" or "I forgot to buy one of my backup characters Phoenix Down." I don't want to save my game after spending JP because what if I realize I could win by buying different abilities? What if I want to test new Command set-ups? But this is actually a mistake; I can't keep track of each individual purchase I have to make each time I reload.
After a total of four fruitless attempt, I decide that there's no point pushing myself to the brink of frustration trying to figure out the perfect tactics. It's time to do some grinding.
If you look closely at the top picture, you'll note something weird - there's a human among those monsters. Specifically, a Monk.
So far, it's been the only human I've ever seen in a monster encounter. I can only conclude that, in the world of Final Fantasy Tactics, some Monks are hermits who, when they retire to the wilderness to practice their kung fu, sometimes end up befriending monsters and throwing in with them in their fights against humans.
…
Why are monsters, anyway? I haven't really been thinking about it because it's just a franchise staple, but in this game, monsters are specifically operating as multispecies packs hunting traveling groups of armed humans using advanced tactics. Several of them wear clothes! What's that about?
The human-side worldbuilding is already too dense for me to spend much time thinking about it, but it is kind of fascinating that these monsters operate as kind of mini-humans emulating their approach to problem solving (group based violence across species boundaries).
There isn't much to say about these as fights - they're not very difficult, though I do have to keep an eye on my Phoenix Down supplies, and after three, I feel like I'm in a decent place with my characters - a couple of them have leveled up, I have Phoenix Down users beyond Gillian, I have secured Hi-Potion.
I've also unlocked a new class.
After reaching Time Mage job level 3, Osric has unlocked Summoner. I'm really excited about Summoner just like I'm always excited to find out how any given FF game handles its summons and because summons are really cool, but precisely because I'm excited about it I can't afford to think about it right and now and let myself be distracted with a fresh lv 1 job when I need to focus on defeating Wiegraf first.
On our way back to Windmill Flat, we run into a random encounter we weren't actively looking for, which is fine.
*BEHOLD, A DRAGON.
That's the enemy type, dragon. I've always loved being able to go dragon-slaying, so I take special care to eliminate the rest of the encounter first before squaring off with the big guy. It's tough and hits decently hard, though ultimately it's 'just' a strong physical monster, it doesn't even breathe fire or anything.
Alright.
Time for the rematch.
OH GOD WHAT THE FUCK.
Okay, so here's the deal. You can see in this picture that Delita is alive. That's because, with Ramza's level-up, he's become faster than Delita. Thus, I have him move aggressively up the staircase - it's a risky move, but it means taking the heat off the more vulnerable Delita, and it's in a direction that will actually allow Ramza to hit the enemy next turn rather than just stare angrily from down the cliff.
The problem is that Wiegraf doesn't receive Ramza with Judgment Blade as he did Delita. Instead, he uses Northwain's Strike, an attack that 1) has higher damage (which still shouldn't have killed Ramza, who has way more than 63 HP), and 2) carries a chance of instant death.
This is an inauspicious start.
…
As far as I can tell, 'Northswain' is not actually an archaic English word, nor a word borrowed from previous fantasy writings like George R.R. Martin's work. It appears to be a neologism, or more accurately a faux archaism, designed by Reeder or Slattery; it's composed of 'North's" and "Wain", meaning "Northern Cart", which would seem to refer to the North Star or the Big Dipper? The Big Dipper is apparently also known as 'the Wagon' in English, so it's likely the latter. That's fascinating; they literally made up more Old Timey Englishe that did not actually exist before them.
Anyway, when I see Ramza go down Turn 1 after spending an hour in random encounters I feel a sense of profound sadness and melancholy settle upon my soul. Perhaps even more importantly, I realize that while I bought items, I forgot to teach Hester (my Knight) how to use Phoenix Downs (so Gillian isn't the only one able to raise the dead), so she can't raise Ramza. So I just reload and try again.
Northswain's Strike, instant KO, again. But this time it's fine. I'm not rushing headlong at Wiegraf's instant kill attack without a plan.
Ramza approaches Wiegraf, is instantly killed, but then Hester steps forward to shield him with her body while Gillian raises him with a Phoenix Down, and Osric immediately follows casting Haste on Ramza so that his turn can come as soon as possible and he can heal himself up with a Hi-Potion.
Wiegraf just uses Northwain's Strike again, instantly killing Hester, and a Monk kills Ramza anyway. I'm down my two fighters, this is a wash.
…
Something that bothers me about this that wouldn't so much if this wasn't a Let's Play is: In tough fights I'm frequently put in front of situations like this, where I have suffered such heavy losses that defeat seems extremely likely. And part of me wants to 'play it out', because it would make for a great underdog story if I somehow pulled off a comeback and won. But also? This isn't a normal Final Fantasy game, every round in these takes several minutes to resolve. If I'm down Ramza and Hester right at the start, then I could spend ten more minutes playing out the grinding process of trying to salvage things with healing and evasion and maybe, maybe pull off a comeback, but most likely just waste my time and energy, die, and hurt my enjoyment of the game. So I end up quitting early in these circumstances, which isn't necessarily very satisfying from an audience perspective.
Maybe I'll just skip over these in the future, I just want to convey to you, this one time, just how much of a wall Wiegraf is.
We reload about two more times for stupid reasons of 'messed up my combat prep', bringing our total defeat count at Wiegraf's hands to a whopping six. Throughout it all, I keep asking myself the same question: Should I focus on bringing Wiegraf down and ignore his cohort entirely, or should I do what worked against Milleuda and whittle down his party before I can comfortably focus him down? I don't have a good answer to that question; I just have what ended up working for me in the end.
After Defeat #7, anyway (and very quickly Defeat #8 which we won't talk about). This time, I really thought I had something. No early quitting, my strategy of 'throw Ramza to the wolves then raise and heal him immediately and now my whole party is in close range of Wiegraf to beat him up' seemed to succeed, Delita survived unexpectedly long, my buff went off, I have a complete set of dozens of screenshots of this one battle because I genuinely thought I could pull it off. I kept moving in a tight formation, scattering my enemies in front of me and driving Wiegraf back to the edge of the screen. It's going so well, I am in fact unlocking more mid-fight dialogue.
In the end though, it didn't work. I overstretched my line, so the enemy swooped back in and picked me off from the rear, starting with Osric and targeting Gillian as soon as possible. They dealt me a comprehensive tactical defeat, grinding down my party until I am faced with a full on game over, Ramza going down last.
This is the point at which I paused the game to go figuratively scream in my thread.
This is fine.
I learn from every mistake.
IV. Windflat Mill (Glorious Victory)
Napoléon Bonaparte is quoted as having once said: "I know he's a good general, but is he lucky?"
The answer to our problem is that Northswain's Strike's KO rider is a chance-based effect. If it doesn't trigger, it's just a hideously strong ranged damage attack. And if I push Ramza forward on Turn 1 and he survives the instant KO, then all the enemies gang up on him to deliver a conga line of hurt, which still does end in him being KO, but means it's consumed their entire round. It took Wiegraf, one Knight, Boco, and one Monk to take down Ramza, leaving only one Monk with her turn up. This frees up a considerable amount of pressure on everyone else in my team.
First, I have Hester move up to Ramza's body and use a Phoenix Down. Because Hester isn't a Chemist, she can't actually throw Items; her Items command only allow her to use them on characters adjacent to her. My clever plan here is to have the tankier character raise Ramza, and then Gillian can throw a Hi-Potion at him, bringing him back up to nearly full HP.
…
Do you see how the little box says Gillian has a 00% chance of hitting Ramza with the Hi-Potion? Do you see it?
Because thrown potions need to traverse space, any attempt at tossing the potion to Ramza here just results in the potion hitting Knight Hester in the back instead.
This is. This is just.
…
Honestly it's funny. Like, this is such a stupid roadblock to run into, it's legitimately hilarious. In a game full of gameplay contrivances, this is where they put realism in missile trajectories. Fuck.
On the other hand I felt like I was pulling my hair out when I realized why this wasn't working, and indeed, why my last fight had run into the same problem - at the time, I'd just assumed that I had accidentally misclicked on Hester instead of Ramza. But no.
Whatever. Seeing as Wiegraf, Boco, and an enemy Monk are all clumped together in a cross pattern, I change course and adapt by throwing a Fira in the middle of the enemy formation.
Then, I have Osric cast Haste on Ramza. Which is an incredibly dangerous move for me to make right now, because Ramza is on the same ground elevation as Boco and the enemy Knight, which means they both get hit by Haste. Haste whiffs on Boco, but does take hold on the Knight, so I've buffed the enemy as well as Ramza - which doesn't matter, as Haste was my only chance for Ramza to survive:
Instead of going dead last in the round again, Ramza's turn comes up almost immediately. And he has Hi-Potion, so he can use it on himself.
We're fucking saved.
Down in the valley, Delita is getting pummeled by two Monks at once. Which is good: my goal is to kill Wiegraf, and that frees up two enemies out of five by focusing on a character I can't control anyway, clearing the way for a coordinated assault. Ramza rushes Wiegraf in close combat, which means he takes severe Counter damage but is now a clear target for Gillian to lob bottles of chemicals at.
And so now, we can finally get to that dialogue we skipped earlier during our last defeat.
Ramza: "Lay down your arms, Wiegraf! What end will more deaths serve?"
Wiegraf: "What end did my sister's death serve?"
Ramza: "We did not set out to kill her! This quarrel need not be settled by the sword. Let us treat, and persist not in this bloodshed!"
Wiegraf: "You see it not - the reason we hold fast to our steel! What advantage might I hope to enjoy at the treaty table? And who would set a seat for me there? You? Even were it in your power, your brothers would never heed any agreement we might reach!"
Ramza: "My brothers do not want this fight! Set down your sword, Wiegraf, and my brothers will treat with you!"
Wiegraf: "Ha! No spoony bard could spin a sweeter tale! You say your brothers do not want this fight? Tears then, for the world you see is one beyond my weary sight."
Spoony bard reference spotted. Final Fantasy IV was, by Tom Slattery's own admission, his favorite FF of all time (and he helmed the new translation for the 3D port). He's not the only one who says that and I don't really get it, because FFIV had the merit of a lot of 'firsts' in FF history but was still kind of mid as a story, but it seems a common opinion among refined FFheads of sophisticated taste - Tim Rogers also calls it the best Final Fantasy, IIRC.
Fighting resumes. Wiegraf's Northwain's Strike takes out Hester, and Boco hops down from the cliff to go finish off Delita. We're two party members down, but again - our sole objective is Wiegraf, and Boco leaving means that the two Monks and the Chocobo are down in the valley around his unconscious body, which means Wiegraf is alone with Ramza, Osric, Gillian, and - a after a quick Phoenix Down - Hester again.
This may not look like a battle's course turning around, but Wiegraf needs to kill all of us; we only need to kill him, and his friends went harrying off after a lesser target.
Ramza: "You would have me believe my brothers plot at war?"
Wiegraf: "Callow child. The hands that guide history's reins are ever black with blood. Think you Dycedarg's hand more just? A new justice is born and dies on the lips of each man who would pronounce it."
Ramza: "Do not mock my brothers!"
[Fighting resumes.]
And there it is. Ramza's back attack brings Wiegraf's HP into his critical level, and Ramza dodges the counter. The revolutionary falls to his knees, and the battle is over.
Wiegraf: "You fight well, boy. Forgive me, Milleuda! But there is too much left undone for me to lay down my life now."
Ramza: "Wiegraf, wait!"
Wiegraf: [He turns to Ramza] "Who do you think sent Gustav to kidnap Marquis Elmdore? It was none other than your lord brother, Dycedarg. With Lord Zalbaag's approval, to be sure."
Ramza: "Absurd! Why would Dycedarg do such a thing?"
Wiegraf: "The Lions vie for power in the void left by the king's death. I speak, of course, of Larg, the White Lion, and Goltanna, the Black. Each hopes to learn who may be counted as friend, and who as foe. But such things are not so easily read. Easier rid yourself of those whose loyalty is uncertain, and install others to rule in their stead. I fear Gustav, fool that he was, tired of our rebellion, and was taken in by the silver tongue of your dear brother, Dycedarg."
Ramza: "Lies! No Beoulve would do a thing so craven as this!"
Wiegraf: "Do not take my word for it. Judge their actions for yourself. Farewell, young Beoulve."
And then he fucking teleports.
All surviving enemies also vanish, though notably they lack the same particle effect indicating teleportation; I think we're meant to assume they either died in the battle even if it didn't happen in gameplay, or they were taken into custody?
Ramza: "Wiegraf! Coward! You insult my name, and flee in the same breath!"
Hmmm.
It would be easy to agree with Ramza here, and call Wiegraf a coward for, after all his speeches about dying for the sake of the revolution, teleporting out at the last moment to avoid death or capture. And if the game's gameplay and narrative were more directly integrated and it was clear that he was abandoning his soldiers in doing so, I might be inclined towards that read, but the battle system and its results are too abstracted for me to go that far.
I think he's just right. He's a revolutionary, with fewer resources and men than any of his targets, and he has to fight in a guerilla fashion. There's nothing wrong with retreating from a losing battle so he can continue his fight another day. Even by knightly standards of honor and conduct in battle, it's not like "the concept of a retreat" is considered dishonorable or cowardly. Yes, he failed to avenge his sister, but he did try, and faced certain defeat, and no revenge at all.
I'm still not fully clear on Wiegraf's character, but I don't think poorly of him for escaping this battle. It was the correct choice.
Even if he's a punk bitch who denied me the kill after I wiped to his bullshit moves eight times-
Aherm. More importantly, he revealed to Ramza his brothers' treachery - and of course, Ramza doesn't want to believe. Such conduct, to manipulate events, treat other nobles as pawn on a chess board to remove and replace, nobles actively recruiting the Corpse Brigade's help at the same time as they are hunting them down, it's impossible to reconcile with his image of his brothers as wise and honorable and fair.
Because… if Dycedarg and Zalbaag are the kind of people who would hire a cutthroat to abduct a marquis… Then they're probably the kind who would lie to their own brother. Who would order an assault on a fortress knowing Delita's sister is held captive. Who might, if Ramza did bring them Milleuda or Wiegraf under a white flag of surrender and a promise of safety… Ignore that vow and break that promise for him?
If he can't trust his brothers, who can he even trust?
(The answer, if we hadn't seen the prologue, would naturally be: Delita. Only we have seen it, and we know that will not hold.)
Delita rushes into the windmill, calling out Tietra's name, but she's gone. Ramza angrily exclaims that Wiegraf lied to them, but I think this is the kind of tragic quid pro quo which these stories love - Wiegraf intended for Tietra to be freed, but he left her with Gragoroth, who likely saw in her his ticket to freedom.
Ramza urges Delita to keep going on to Ziekden, the Corpse Brigade's last fortress, where he's certain Tietra will be, but Delita doesn't seem to be listening, and has a minor breakdown.
Delita: "Why? Why is this happening? Whyn, Ramza? Why Tietra?"
[He falls to his knees, weeping.]
Ramza: "I'm sorry, Delita…"
And we cut to the map, where the last node awaits us.
…
I started this update fully intending to hit all three nodes of this stretch of the story, and whatever conclusion to the Corpse Brigade Arc awaits us at Ziekden Fortress, assuming that's where it ends. Unfortunately, Wiegraf had other plans, and this update is now just under 10k words long and may exceed it by the end of this passage.
The introduction of Final Fantasy Tactics fascinates me. Why give your hand so early? Why show the Divine Knight and Dark Knight in action with a suspiciously leveled up Ramza before yoinking it away? Why reveal Delita's betrayal before we've even had time to know him as a friend?
This sequence, I think, shows why. Delita's friendship with Ramza is laced with foreboding, with the promise of tragedy to come, because we first met him as a despicable-seeming villain in the opening. The realization that Wiegraf is using something incredibly similar (possibly identical but I don't know the exact details) to Agrias's toolkit, only this time this overpowered force of nature is arrayed against us and we have to survive it, hits so hard because we fought alongside Agrias and Gaffgarion before. Ramza's slow awakening to how profoundly fucked the class system of Ivalice is and that there is a dark side to his brothers that he never knew is similarly enhanced by the fact that we first met him coldly introducing himself as 'a knight no longer, just another sellsword.'
It's craft, guys.
Mechanically I can't hide that this battle was so hard it at times veered into the frustrating. I could have alleviated a large part of that frustration by grinding just a little more than I ended up doing, but I wanted to win on my own terms? It's very hard for me to judge the 'expected level' of any main story encounter so I know that I am fighting it 'fairly' and not making up for bad play with overleveling. And in the end my final victory relied in no small part on luck…
But I quoted Napoléon earlier for a reason. Luck is an important component of generalship. And engaging with a tough tactical battle in a proper turn by turn system with positioning and multiple abilities and team tactics is just…
It feels good, man.
...
Rest in peace, Milleuda o7
Thank you for reading.
Next Time: Ziekden Fortress.
Main Story Battle Count: 9 (We're counting Orbonne Monastery for accounting purposes only.)
Random Battle Count: 11
Getting Our Asses Kicked By Wiegraf Count: 8
Total Kills: 12
Casualties: 0
As soon as we enter the next node, a new cutscene plays. Wiegraf is challenging Gragoroth over his recent actions.
Wiegraf: "Why have you kidnapped this girl?"
Gragoroth: "We had to take a hostage - there was no other way to escape."
Wiegraf: "Then why not release her once you were clear of your pursuers? Do not tell me this madness has taken even you!"
Gragoroth: "I am no Gustav, if that is what you fear! Think, Wiegraf. We've lost the greater part of our number, and the Northern Order draws upon us from all sides. She is of Beoulve blood. A hundred swords - a thousand! - could not buy our freedom with such ease!"
Wiegraf: "So we fly - what then? Know you some happy haven in which we may alight? If we flee, they win once more. As they have always won. We must make for our children a fairer future than the past you and I have known. They must not suffer as we do! The stone we cast might raise only the smallest of waves, but see how they crash upon the shore! Waves rich with our blood…"
Gragoroth: "Then you order us to our deaths!?"
Wiegraf: "If by our deaths a single drop of noble blood should water the earth, they shall not be in vain."
Gragoroth: "Foolishness! The only blood the earth will drink will be our own."
Wiegraf: "The remainder of our forces should yet be safe in our fastness at Ziekden. We must rejoin them - together we have the strength to strike!"
Gragoroth: "And if they are already dead?"
[At this moment, another Brigade member enters.]
I believe this is the first time I've ever run into 'fastness' used in the sense of 'a fortified or secure place.' Meriam-Webster doesn't list it as 'archaic' but the Cambridge dictionary does list it as 'literary'; this is an obnoxiously rare use of the word. It's rooted in the older, alternate meaning of 'fast' as 'fixed, firmly in place,' which is what gave us the word steadfast and the phrase hold fast.
I'm not sure what to make of Wiegraf in this exchange. He seems to oscillate between a man of honor who may be idealistic to a fault, unwilling to resort to tactics like hostage taking and anything 'dishonorable,' and a bloody-minded fanatic who is willing to sacrifice all his men for 'a single drop of noble blood to water the earth,' and I find these hard to reconcile.
With that said, this scene once again dabbles in dramatic irony - Wiegraf is arguing with Gragoroth about the sacrifices necessary to bring about a better world for commoner children even if they never live to see it… While Tietra, one of those very commoner children, is sitting right there tied up and being used as a hostage, unacknowledged by the two men who merely assume she is noble.
It's almost like the game is trying to say something about the divide between nobles and commoners is entirely a social construct that cannot be seen from merely looking at someone. A social construct with enormous power, to be sure - but whatever Argath and Milleuda may think, you cannot in fact tell noble from lowborn merely from looking at them.
The monk who enters the room informs Wiegraf of the grave news: Milleuda is dead. He can't believe it at first, but there is no time to reckon with this, no time to grieve: The very same company that slew her is approaching now. Wiegraf orders everyone to live and make for the Ziekden fortress and to leave Tietra behind, but it's already too late.
We're here.
Wiegraf valiantly goes to hold us back. But Gragoroth says that though he will run, he does not mean to die - then gives a thoughtful glance at Tietra.
Yeah, he's going to grab her and take her with him as he leaves, zero doubts there.
I really like how before they get eyes on them and it turns out our party is a bunch of teenagers, we are framed as a horrifying force, a looming death on the horizon that already took Wiegraf's sister and is arriving faster than they could anticipate, faster than they could prepare for, and with it the promise of death. It's only Chapter 1, and we're already the harbingers of doom, the faceless terror of state oppression, the bloody sword of Ivalice's aristocracy. And they dread us accordingly.
Unfortunately, that means Wiegraf has decided he needed to step out and face us himself.
Which, hm.
Well.
Windmill Flat is a knife fight in a phone booth. The map is so small, we're only allowed to take four characters instead of five, even though we no longer have Argath to fill the empty slot. Not being sure what to look for, I decide to bench Osric the Time Mage for now and take Hadrian (Thief), Gillian (Chemist) and Hester (Knight). The enemy is loaded up exclusively on physical combat classes (which, as it'll quickly turn out, isn't the same thing as melee classes), with two Monks, a Knight, a Chocobo, and Wiegraf himself. That's five characters to our five, so in theory we're evenly matched. In practice, they are on average higher level than we are, and they start from a much stronger tactical position.
It's not going to get any better any time soon. But first, it's time for dramatic introductions.
Wiegraf: "Your faces are known to me. But I did not know that you would one day kill my sister. Milleuda deserved a better death - they did not even send proper knights to kill her!"
Ramza: "She was your sister… I am sorry."
Wiegraf: "I will not flee before her murderers. I'll venge Milleuda's death or die in the trying!"
[COMMENCE!]
Delita: "My sister, Tietra - you will set her free!"
Wiegraf: "Your sister? Then you are a Beoulve, yes?"
Ramza: "He is not. If it is a Beoulve you seek, address yourself to me!"
Wiegraf: "So, Grogaroth has erred. But surely the girl must hold some connection with House Beoulve?"
Ramza: "You draw no distinction between our house and those who deal with us?"
Wiegraf: "Should I? Well, it matters not. There was no question as to her release. We make no habit of holding hostages. But first we've a score to settle. You will see her free - if you live to see aught at all!"
This is the first time we see meaningful pushback against Wiegraf's ideas - the fact that he treats commoners who deal with noble houses and the houses themselves darkens our picture of the man. To be sure, he can't really approach it any other way - willing commoners are vital to the nobility's power, after all; merchants who trade with them, soldiers who serve in their armies that can't be composed of only knights, labourers, servants, the maids and cooks and tailors that enable their lifestyle. But by the same token, once you've designated all commoners who deal with nobles willingly as acceptable target, you've pretty much designated everyone who isn't in active rebellion against the nobility an acceptable target. At least a guy like Gustav or Gragoroth just wouldn't care, but Wiegraf has to construct an argument as to why this is Fine Actually, and he's on shakier grounds there than he was before.
Unfortunately for us he has a perfect out of any tough rhetorical trap and it's JUDGMENT SWORD.
Wiegraf is capable of ranged, AoE attacks using his sword. Their animation should be familiar. After all…
…Wiegraf's class is White Knight.
There are ways to tell a player "you are not the hero here," and literally calling your opponent the White Knight is honestly pretty up there, jesus. That also makes him a mechanical mirror of Agrias from the prologue, capable of devastating damage at range, which he is all too content to use from atop this cliff where our characters cannot attack him head-on. Our only way up is this precarious, one-tile wide natural staircase hugging the side of windmill; only one character can advance at a time, severely constraining our movement.
This would be bad enough, but look at this fucking Chocobo.
THE CHOCOBO'S NAME IS BOCO. IT'S THE SAME AS BARTZ'S CHOCOBO FROM FFV. WE'RE TOAST.
The UI doing its best to broadcast how fucked we are aside, tactically this is a nightmare. Delita is, inexplicably, my fastest character; that means he acts first, immediately stepping forward towards the enemy but unable to get close enough to attack them. Wiegraf instantly drops the Judgment Sword on his face, deleting half his HP, and Boco dashes in and hits him with Choco Beak for an extra 40 damage, instantly taking him out.
So, I haven't acted yet, and I'm already down one party member out of five, leaving me in a 4 vs 5 where one of the enemies is a lv 9 White Knight. For reference, Ramza himself is barely lv 7, and he's my highest level character.
So. Going great.
It's fine. All we have to do is proceed methodically without overextending ourselves with needless risk. For instance, having Hester and Ramza move forward, flank Boco, and turn him into drumsticks should ease off some pressure from the beast, and Gillian can step in immediately after to toss a Phoenix Down at Delita.
In the process, we move Hadrian over to the staircase. Just like its single-file width blocks us from advancing more than one at a time, it also blocks the enemy. A Thief isn't exactly the ideal body to block an approaching Monk, especially since he has the Mage Masher (useless in this fight) rather than the blinding dagger. Whatever. This is fine.
Oh he has more fucking magic sword tricks. Fantastic.
And then, to my surprise, my entire plan comes crashing down when this happens:
It turns out. The Monk. Can just. Hop down. From the staircase. Which I cannot climb up. So it just purely advantages the opposing side and I cannot, in fact, use it for my own advantage.
Said Monk then reveals she has a move called Shockwave, which is ANOTHER FUCKING RANGED PHYSICAL ATTACK, which ignores my lines to go hit Delita in the back row at the other end of the battlefield where he was supposed to be safe until Gillian could throw a Potion at him. But no. That monk has better range than an Archer and Delita dies instantly, again.
It's not all bad. With the monk out of the way, Hadrian is actually able to move up to behind that Knight at the top of the stairs to stab her in the back, and Ramza and Hester are now both within melee range of both enemy Monks, so they move to attack the most injured one and takes her out. The fight is now a much more even 4 vs 4.
With just one problem. In doing so, I had Hester and Ramza inadvertently position themselves on two branches of an imaginary cross.
Wiegraf uses Judgment Sword, which hits in an X-pattern, to hit them both at once. Hester is in critical condition. Ramza, who just got hit in retaliation by the last enemy monk, is down.
In desperation, I have Hester move to Wiegraf's back and Hadrian get down, both of them ganging up to stab him hoping to rush the win condition. Unfortunately, Wiegraf has Counter.
His turn never comes back around - he takes out both Hadrian and Hester with Counters alone. That leaves Gillian as my only surviving character. Because she has Items, I could drag this out for a couple more rounds, give or take ten minutes, but the outcome is pretty settled. I reload my last save.
This was a crushing defeat. Wiegraf is a beast, and he comes packaged with an absolutely brutal set of allies for the battlefield we meet him in. They're all physical classes, but Wiegraf and the Monks are all capable of long range attacks, AoEs, and Wiegraf himself can do long range AoE. What a nightmare.
Let's do some brief tweaks before we try again…
Gillian has actually earned enough JP to learn Hi-Potion. Hi-Potions heal 70 HP a pop, and are now available in shops, so let's spend a little on those and try again. Hadrian wasn't performing very well as a Thief, so maybe having a support/damage class like Osric's Time Mage with Black Magicks equipped will do the trick.
Here, you can see the single-file approach I was talking about earlier, the only way I can approach Wiegraf if he doesn't decide to come down from his perch. Hester can at least tank any damage from the front, but Ramza and Osric are wide open to flanking, and everyone is equally vulnerable to ranged attacks. Also, Delita died before my first turn yet again. Not only that, but I've made a terrible discovery: Judgment Sword inflicts Stop. Even if Delita is somehow able to survive the initial onslaught to which he opens himself up on turn 1, Stop just freezes him, completely unable to do anything and taking extra damage. Stop eventually wears off, but it's bad news.
If I recounted every defeat Wiegraf handed me we would be here all weak, so let's cut this short:
I Haste Ramza so he can move faster and get in more hits, which allows him to move ahead of the group to attack Wiegraf, which means he immediately eats a Counter then gets ganged up on by the Knight and Monk and dies before I could KO a single enemy. The fight is now a 3v5 and I'm down my best fighter, no point seeing it through, reload.
Lesson learned: Haste is not always a benefit if you use your increased speed to increase your exposure to enemy attacks.
At this point, I'm starting to wonder… Is this even possible? Is this fight possible, at this level, for me? I'm sure an experienced player would be entirely capable of winning this fight with this team at this level, but I'm not an experienced player, I'm still learning the game. Is the solution to just grind for a while? Outleveling my opposition seems like a pretty poor way to engage with a tactics game.
At the same time, Ramza is two levels behind Wiegraf, and the rest of the team is even lower level than Ramza, and I can't control Delita who always gets killed on the first turn before I can act. It really does seem like maybe I just need slightly stronger units.
I try it again a couple of times at current level, shuffling my party members around a little, but nothing's working. Truth be told, a couple of these runs are complete duds where I quit because I realized something stupid like "I forgot to buy Gillian's Hi-Potion Ability" or "I forgot to buy one of my backup characters Phoenix Down." I don't want to save my game after spending JP because what if I realize I could win by buying different abilities? What if I want to test new Command set-ups? But this is actually a mistake; I can't keep track of each individual purchase I have to make each time I reload.
After a total of four fruitless attempt, I decide that there's no point pushing myself to the brink of frustration trying to figure out the perfect tactics. It's time to do some grinding.
If you look closely at the top picture, you'll note something weird - there's a human among those monsters. Specifically, a Monk.
So far, it's been the only human I've ever seen in a monster encounter. I can only conclude that, in the world of Final Fantasy Tactics, some Monks are hermits who, when they retire to the wilderness to practice their kung fu, sometimes end up befriending monsters and throwing in with them in their fights against humans.
…
Why are monsters, anyway? I haven't really been thinking about it because it's just a franchise staple, but in this game, monsters are specifically operating as multispecies packs hunting traveling groups of armed humans using advanced tactics. Several of them wear clothes! What's that about?
The human-side worldbuilding is already too dense for me to spend much time thinking about it, but it is kind of fascinating that these monsters operate as kind of mini-humans emulating their approach to problem solving (group based violence across species boundaries).
There isn't much to say about these as fights - they're not very difficult, though I do have to keep an eye on my Phoenix Down supplies, and after three, I feel like I'm in a decent place with my characters - a couple of them have leveled up, I have Phoenix Down users beyond Gillian, I have secured Hi-Potion.
I've also unlocked a new class.
After reaching Time Mage job level 3, Osric has unlocked Summoner. I'm really excited about Summoner just like I'm always excited to find out how any given FF game handles its summons and because summons are really cool, but precisely because I'm excited about it I can't afford to think about it right and now and let myself be distracted with a fresh lv 1 job when I need to focus on defeating Wiegraf first.
On our way back to Windmill Flat, we run into a random encounter we weren't actively looking for, which is fine.
*That's the enemy type, dragon. I've always loved being able to go dragon-slaying, so I take special care to eliminate the rest of the encounter first before squaring off with the big guy. It's tough and hits decently hard, though ultimately it's 'just' a strong physical monster, it doesn't even breathe fire or anything.
Alright.
Time for the rematch.
OH GOD WHAT THE FUCK.
Okay, so here's the deal. You can see in this picture that Delita is alive. That's because, with Ramza's level-up, he's become faster than Delita. Thus, I have him move aggressively up the staircase - it's a risky move, but it means taking the heat off the more vulnerable Delita, and it's in a direction that will actually allow Ramza to hit the enemy next turn rather than just stare angrily from down the cliff.
The problem is that Wiegraf doesn't receive Ramza with Judgment Blade as he did Delita. Instead, he uses Northwain's Strike, an attack that 1) has higher damage (which still shouldn't have killed Ramza, who has way more than 63 HP), and 2) carries a chance of instant death.
This is an inauspicious start.
…
As far as I can tell, 'Northswain' is not actually an archaic English word, nor a word borrowed from previous fantasy writings like George R.R. Martin's work. It appears to be a neologism, or more accurately a faux archaism, designed by Reeder or Slattery; it's composed of 'North's" and "Wain", meaning "Northern Cart", which would seem to refer to the North Star or the Big Dipper? The Big Dipper is apparently also known as 'the Wagon' in English, so it's likely the latter. That's fascinating; they literally made up more Old Timey Englishe that did not actually exist before them.
Anyway, when I see Ramza go down Turn 1 after spending an hour in random encounters I feel a sense of profound sadness and melancholy settle upon my soul. Perhaps even more importantly, I realize that while I bought items, I forgot to teach Hester (my Knight) how to use Phoenix Downs (so Gillian isn't the only one able to raise the dead), so she can't raise Ramza. So I just reload and try again.
Northswain's Strike, instant KO, again. But this time it's fine. I'm not rushing headlong at Wiegraf's instant kill attack without a plan.
Ramza approaches Wiegraf, is instantly killed, but then Hester steps forward to shield him with her body while Gillian raises him with a Phoenix Down, and Osric immediately follows casting Haste on Ramza so that his turn can come as soon as possible and he can heal himself up with a Hi-Potion.
Wiegraf just uses Northwain's Strike again, instantly killing Hester, and a Monk kills Ramza anyway. I'm down my two fighters, this is a wash.
…
Something that bothers me about this that wouldn't so much if this wasn't a Let's Play is: In tough fights I'm frequently put in front of situations like this, where I have suffered such heavy losses that defeat seems extremely likely. And part of me wants to 'play it out', because it would make for a great underdog story if I somehow pulled off a comeback and won. But also? This isn't a normal Final Fantasy game, every round in these takes several minutes to resolve. If I'm down Ramza and Hester right at the start, then I could spend ten more minutes playing out the grinding process of trying to salvage things with healing and evasion and maybe, maybe pull off a comeback, but most likely just waste my time and energy, die, and hurt my enjoyment of the game. So I end up quitting early in these circumstances, which isn't necessarily very satisfying from an audience perspective.
Maybe I'll just skip over these in the future, I just want to convey to you, this one time, just how much of a wall Wiegraf is.
We reload about two more times for stupid reasons of 'messed up my combat prep', bringing our total defeat count at Wiegraf's hands to a whopping six. Throughout it all, I keep asking myself the same question: Should I focus on bringing Wiegraf down and ignore his cohort entirely, or should I do what worked against Milleuda and whittle down his party before I can comfortably focus him down? I don't have a good answer to that question; I just have what ended up working for me in the end.
After Defeat #7, anyway (and very quickly Defeat #8 which we won't talk about). This time, I really thought I had something. No early quitting, my strategy of 'throw Ramza to the wolves then raise and heal him immediately and now my whole party is in close range of Wiegraf to beat him up' seemed to succeed, Delita survived unexpectedly long, my buff went off, I have a complete set of dozens of screenshots of this one battle because I genuinely thought I could pull it off. I kept moving in a tight formation, scattering my enemies in front of me and driving Wiegraf back to the edge of the screen. It's going so well, I am in fact unlocking more mid-fight dialogue.
In the end though, it didn't work. I overstretched my line, so the enemy swooped back in and picked me off from the rear, starting with Osric and targeting Gillian as soon as possible. They dealt me a comprehensive tactical defeat, grinding down my party until I am faced with a full on game over, Ramza going down last.
This is the point at which I paused the game to go figuratively scream in my thread.
This is fine.
I learn from every mistake.
IV. Windflat Mill (Glorious Victory)
Napoléon Bonaparte is quoted as having once said: "I know he's a good general, but is he lucky?"
The answer to our problem is that Northswain's Strike's KO rider is a chance-based effect. If it doesn't trigger, it's just a hideously strong ranged damage attack. And if I push Ramza forward on Turn 1 and he survives the instant KO, then all the enemies gang up on him to deliver a conga line of hurt, which still does end in him being KO, but means it's consumed their entire round. It took Wiegraf, one Knight, Boco, and one Monk to take down Ramza, leaving only one Monk with her turn up. This frees up a considerable amount of pressure on everyone else in my team.
First, I have Hester move up to Ramza's body and use a Phoenix Down. Because Hester isn't a Chemist, she can't actually throw Items; her Items command only allow her to use them on characters adjacent to her. My clever plan here is to have the tankier character raise Ramza, and then Gillian can throw a Hi-Potion at him, bringing him back up to nearly full HP.
…
Do you see how the little box says Gillian has a 00% chance of hitting Ramza with the Hi-Potion? Do you see it?
Because thrown potions need to traverse space, any attempt at tossing the potion to Ramza here just results in the potion hitting Knight Hester in the back instead.
This is. This is just.
…
Honestly it's funny. Like, this is such a stupid roadblock to run into, it's legitimately hilarious. In a game full of gameplay contrivances, this is where they put realism in missile trajectories. Fuck.
On the other hand I felt like I was pulling my hair out when I realized why this wasn't working, and indeed, why my last fight had run into the same problem - at the time, I'd just assumed that I had accidentally misclicked on Hester instead of Ramza. But no.
Whatever. Seeing as Wiegraf, Boco, and an enemy Monk are all clumped together in a cross pattern, I change course and adapt by throwing a Fira in the middle of the enemy formation.
Then, I have Osric cast Haste on Ramza. Which is an incredibly dangerous move for me to make right now, because Ramza is on the same ground elevation as Boco and the enemy Knight, which means they both get hit by Haste. Haste whiffs on Boco, but does take hold on the Knight, so I've buffed the enemy as well as Ramza - which doesn't matter, as Haste was my only chance for Ramza to survive:
Instead of going dead last in the round again, Ramza's turn comes up almost immediately. And he has Hi-Potion, so he can use it on himself.
We're fucking saved.
Down in the valley, Delita is getting pummeled by two Monks at once. Which is good: my goal is to kill Wiegraf, and that frees up two enemies out of five by focusing on a character I can't control anyway, clearing the way for a coordinated assault. Ramza rushes Wiegraf in close combat, which means he takes severe Counter damage but is now a clear target for Gillian to lob bottles of chemicals at.
And so now, we can finally get to that dialogue we skipped earlier during our last defeat.
Ramza: "Lay down your arms, Wiegraf! What end will more deaths serve?"
Wiegraf: "What end did my sister's death serve?"
Ramza: "We did not set out to kill her! This quarrel need not be settled by the sword. Let us treat, and persist not in this bloodshed!"
Wiegraf: "You see it not - the reason we hold fast to our steel! What advantage might I hope to enjoy at the treaty table? And who would set a seat for me there? You? Even were it in your power, your brothers would never heed any agreement we might reach!"
Ramza: "My brothers do not want this fight! Set down your sword, Wiegraf, and my brothers will treat with you!"
Wiegraf: "Ha! No spoony bard could spin a sweeter tale! You say your brothers do not want this fight? Tears then, for the world you see is one beyond my weary sight."
Spoony bard reference spotted. Final Fantasy IV was, by Tom Slattery's own admission, his favorite FF of all time (and he helmed the new translation for the 3D port). He's not the only one who says that and I don't really get it, because FFIV had the merit of a lot of 'firsts' in FF history but was still kind of mid as a story, but it seems a common opinion among refined FFheads of sophisticated taste - Tim Rogers also calls it the best Final Fantasy, IIRC.
Fighting resumes. Wiegraf's Northwain's Strike takes out Hester, and Boco hops down from the cliff to go finish off Delita. We're two party members down, but again - our sole objective is Wiegraf, and Boco leaving means that the two Monks and the Chocobo are down in the valley around his unconscious body, which means Wiegraf is alone with Ramza, Osric, Gillian, and - a after a quick Phoenix Down - Hester again.
This may not look like a battle's course turning around, but Wiegraf needs to kill all of us; we only need to kill him, and his friends went harrying off after a lesser target.
Ramza: "You would have me believe my brothers plot at war?"
Wiegraf: "Callow child. The hands that guide history's reins are ever black with blood. Think you Dycedarg's hand more just? A new justice is born and dies on the lips of each man who would pronounce it."
Ramza: "Do not mock my brothers!"
[Fighting resumes.]
And there it is. Ramza's back attack brings Wiegraf's HP into his critical level, and Ramza dodges the counter. The revolutionary falls to his knees, and the battle is over.
Wiegraf: "You fight well, boy. Forgive me, Milleuda! But there is too much left undone for me to lay down my life now."
Ramza: "Wiegraf, wait!"
Wiegraf: [He turns to Ramza] "Who do you think sent Gustav to kidnap Marquis Elmdore? It was none other than your lord brother, Dycedarg. With Lord Zalbaag's approval, to be sure."
Ramza: "Absurd! Why would Dycedarg do such a thing?"
Wiegraf: "The Lions vie for power in the void left by the king's death. I speak, of course, of Larg, the White Lion, and Goltanna, the Black. Each hopes to learn who may be counted as friend, and who as foe. But such things are not so easily read. Easier rid yourself of those whose loyalty is uncertain, and install others to rule in their stead. I fear Gustav, fool that he was, tired of our rebellion, and was taken in by the silver tongue of your dear brother, Dycedarg."
Ramza: "Lies! No Beoulve would do a thing so craven as this!"
Wiegraf: "Do not take my word for it. Judge their actions for yourself. Farewell, young Beoulve."
And then he fucking teleports.
All surviving enemies also vanish, though notably they lack the same particle effect indicating teleportation; I think we're meant to assume they either died in the battle even if it didn't happen in gameplay, or they were taken into custody?
Ramza: "Wiegraf! Coward! You insult my name, and flee in the same breath!"
Hmmm.
It would be easy to agree with Ramza here, and call Wiegraf a coward for, after all his speeches about dying for the sake of the revolution, teleporting out at the last moment to avoid death or capture. And if the game's gameplay and narrative were more directly integrated and it was clear that he was abandoning his soldiers in doing so, I might be inclined towards that read, but the battle system and its results are too abstracted for me to go that far.
I think he's just right. He's a revolutionary, with fewer resources and men than any of his targets, and he has to fight in a guerilla fashion. There's nothing wrong with retreating from a losing battle so he can continue his fight another day. Even by knightly standards of honor and conduct in battle, it's not like "the concept of a retreat" is considered dishonorable or cowardly. Yes, he failed to avenge his sister, but he did try, and faced certain defeat, and no revenge at all.
I'm still not fully clear on Wiegraf's character, but I don't think poorly of him for escaping this battle. It was the correct choice.
Even if he's a punk bitch who denied me the kill after I wiped to his bullshit moves eight times-
Aherm. More importantly, he revealed to Ramza his brothers' treachery - and of course, Ramza doesn't want to believe. Such conduct, to manipulate events, treat other nobles as pawn on a chess board to remove and replace, nobles actively recruiting the Corpse Brigade's help at the same time as they are hunting them down, it's impossible to reconcile with his image of his brothers as wise and honorable and fair.
Because… if Dycedarg and Zalbaag are the kind of people who would hire a cutthroat to abduct a marquis… Then they're probably the kind who would lie to their own brother. Who would order an assault on a fortress knowing Delita's sister is held captive. Who might, if Ramza did bring them Milleuda or Wiegraf under a white flag of surrender and a promise of safety… Ignore that vow and break that promise for him?
If he can't trust his brothers, who can he even trust?
(The answer, if we hadn't seen the prologue, would naturally be: Delita. Only we have seen it, and we know that will not hold.)
Delita rushes into the windmill, calling out Tietra's name, but she's gone. Ramza angrily exclaims that Wiegraf lied to them, but I think this is the kind of tragic quid pro quo which these stories love - Wiegraf intended for Tietra to be freed, but he left her with Gragoroth, who likely saw in her his ticket to freedom.
Ramza urges Delita to keep going on to Ziekden, the Corpse Brigade's last fortress, where he's certain Tietra will be, but Delita doesn't seem to be listening, and has a minor breakdown.
Delita: "Why? Why is this happening? Whyn, Ramza? Why Tietra?"
[He falls to his knees, weeping.]
Ramza: "I'm sorry, Delita…"
And we cut to the map, where the last node awaits us.
…
I started this update fully intending to hit all three nodes of this stretch of the story, and whatever conclusion to the Corpse Brigade Arc awaits us at Ziekden Fortress, assuming that's where it ends. Unfortunately, Wiegraf had other plans, and this update is now just under 10k words long and may exceed it by the end of this passage.
The introduction of Final Fantasy Tactics fascinates me. Why give your hand so early? Why show the Divine Knight and Dark Knight in action with a suspiciously leveled up Ramza before yoinking it away? Why reveal Delita's betrayal before we've even had time to know him as a friend?
This sequence, I think, shows why. Delita's friendship with Ramza is laced with foreboding, with the promise of tragedy to come, because we first met him as a despicable-seeming villain in the opening. The realization that Wiegraf is using something incredibly similar (possibly identical but I don't know the exact details) to Agrias's toolkit, only this time this overpowered force of nature is arrayed against us and we have to survive it, hits so hard because we fought alongside Agrias and Gaffgarion before. Ramza's slow awakening to how profoundly fucked the class system of Ivalice is and that there is a dark side to his brothers that he never knew is similarly enhanced by the fact that we first met him coldly introducing himself as 'a knight no longer, just another sellsword.'
It's craft, guys.
Mechanically I can't hide that this battle was so hard it at times veered into the frustrating. I could have alleviated a large part of that frustration by grinding just a little more than I ended up doing, but I wanted to win on my own terms? It's very hard for me to judge the 'expected level' of any main story encounter so I know that I am fighting it 'fairly' and not making up for bad play with overleveling. And in the end my final victory relied in no small part on luck…
But I quoted Napoléon earlier for a reason. Luck is an important component of generalship. And engaging with a tough tactical battle in a proper turn by turn system with positioning and multiple abilities and team tactics is just…
It feels good, man.
...
Rest in peace, Milleuda o7
Thank you for reading.
Next Time: Ziekden Fortress.
Main Story Battle Count: 9 (We're counting Orbonne Monastery for accounting purposes only.)
Random Battle Count: 11
Getting Our Asses Kicked By Wiegraf Count: 8
Total Kills: 12
Casualties: 0
Fun fact I learned in game after catching up to you in preparation for this update that makes this fight much easier you can hide the alleyway behind the windmill because it's a one-way hallway that you can hide your squishy people in the back and then block with Ramza's giant health pool and then spam heal him
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- Location
- the Republic
- Pronouns
- He/They
The sort of thing you say when your day is going just really really well.
I had similar problems with Wiegraf; my solution was in fact to grind until I was somewhat above his level and then roll in heavy. I'm not much for complex strategy.
Great read as always!
- Pronouns
- Him/He
The tension of these battles and the plot is exquisite.
Being a flash-back, the themes of inevitability and inability of Ramza to change anything, the entire situation showing how he literally can't do anything but be the mailed fist of the nobility, is just great.
Being a flash-back, the themes of inevitability and inability of Ramza to change anything, the entire situation showing how he literally can't do anything but be the mailed fist of the nobility, is just great.
fictionfan
Please sir, may I have some Meows?
- Location
- Tempe, AZ
When you play a video game where the plot is tragedy you really notice the strings of fate binding you forcing you to play along with your own doom.
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FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
Only two rakes this time, although yeah the Windmill fight is the big one.
Rake #20: Being on the receiving end of Holy Knight skills sure does suck, doesn't it
Status: It sure does.
Rake #21: Thrown items are indeed projectiles and can thus be body blocked.
Status: A serendipitous rake.
Rake #20: Being on the receiving end of Holy Knight skills sure does suck, doesn't it
Status: It sure does.
Rake #21: Thrown items are indeed projectiles and can thus be body blocked.
Status: A serendipitous rake.
somewhatLazy
Serial Procrastinator
- Location
- lurking
I think Wiegraf, on some level, doesn't actually think that his revolution can succeed, but is still so repulsed by Ivalice's social order that he has to raise up his blades and — for at least a brief moment — bring the world he believes in into reality. The action is more important than the ending. They'll all die in the end, but to simply meekly accept the oppression of the nobles is another, even more intolerable death.
Unfortunately for his ideals and Tietra, most people, including Gragorath, do not think this way.
Guile
Having a really great time right now
If God intended you to win this fight comfortably, then he would have had you be born a Monk.
Shockwave is, in its own way, completely ridiculous. It can only hit in cardinal directions, but it has a completely ridiculous range of 8. Many are the fights where my Monks could fire shockwaves across the entire map, killing mages and archers while they couldn't even retaliate.
Shockwave is, in its own way, completely ridiculous. It can only hit in cardinal directions, but it has a completely ridiculous range of 8. Many are the fights where my Monks could fire shockwaves across the entire map, killing mages and archers while they couldn't even retaliate.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The opening prologue and fashback sequences are IMHO what really make FFT stand out. Just excellent writing.
Alectai
Speaks Words of Wisdom... On occasion
You'll see.
Tactics is legitimately some of the best writing in the Final Fantasy line, and definitely some of the highest tier Political Scumfuckery.
On my first playthrough I went against Wiegraf a uncountable amount of times he cleaned my clock..
On my own replay playthrough yesterday though found myself underlevelled due to not grinding like my og playthough. The use of haste letting the enemy come to me and using delita as a meatshield to split wiegraf from the group(don't complain it my friend its for the cause you want to save your sister right?) won me the day however, knight Ramza is surprisingly tanky and haste fixes a lot of the classes problems with being slow.
Wiegraf's psx speech is mostly the same but it does read as it putting a bit more focus on my we will die so our children will suffer less(which is also a thing he points out in the wotl translation).
Wiegraf also always looked to me like a true believer in the revolution but also not like the type to have zero scruples. Its not that he's bloodthirsty its that he's at war with the entire social order of things.
On my own replay playthrough yesterday though found myself underlevelled due to not grinding like my og playthough. The use of haste letting the enemy come to me and using delita as a meatshield to split wiegraf from the group(don't complain it my friend its for the cause you want to save your sister right?) won me the day however, knight Ramza is surprisingly tanky and haste fixes a lot of the classes problems with being slow.
Wiegraf's psx speech is mostly the same but it does read as it putting a bit more focus on my we will die so our children will suffer less(which is also a thing he points out in the wotl translation).
Wiegraf also always looked to me like a true believer in the revolution but also not like the type to have zero scruples. Its not that he's bloodthirsty its that he's at war with the entire social order of things.
Wade Garrett
Just trying to do the right thing
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Has he done anything genuinely heroic in the last few updates?
Let's see...followed his nepobaby buddy around going "YEAH, BOSS", killed some other poor people while henching for the rich nepobaby, in the Prologue he snuck in the back door while Agrias and Gafgarion slaughtered his compatriots and then he uhhh...heroically punched an unarmed & untrained woman and kidnapped her, not the most heroic resume, I guess he did punch Argath in the jaw although not even hard enough to stop the Heated Classism Moments, but still. Kinda thin on the heroism.
Honestly the odd thing in this update is Argath spilling the beans on Dycedarg's little white lies, it could be him angling to send Delita and Ramza off to die on Corpse Brigade swords but that doesn't seem like his style, in everything up until now he hasn't exactly come off as a cunning planner.
I almost want to say he could be genuinely trying to do them a favor for saving him and his liege lord the Marquis, albeit in an almost self defeating screeching asshole way because sense of obligation or not he is who he is.
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- Location
- PA
…Omi, do me a favor and have someone study white magic.
If nothing else, they'll have something better then Phoenix down and you won't have to calculate ballistic angles anymore for item throws.
Watching you wipe to so-called rakes is one thing. Ramza being 2 levels under where he should be by story standards is much less so, at least for me.
If nothing else, they'll have something better then Phoenix down and you won't have to calculate ballistic angles anymore for item throws.
Watching you wipe to so-called rakes is one thing. Ramza being 2 levels under where he should be by story standards is much less so, at least for me.
I'm pretty sure I'm even less high levelled on my run right now. Also quite frankly white magics lame compared to chemistry, chucking potions is way easier.
Tho if I recall I did make use of archery alongside item use for my healer in the fight as well to boost my offence.
Tbh tho this fight is all the proof you need that Wiegraf is goated.
View: https://i.imgur.com/wPI3YqN.jpg
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I think the more immediate question in light of the narrative thus far is how someone like Delita managed to make such an extensive mark on history AT ALL in this time period. Because there's definitely some points being made about class dynamics here. And yet…
Hey cmon he's not that low on the social totem poll that Beowolf tutelage is the sort of thing that takes you places he isn't your average peasant no matter how much Argath wants to not admit it he's probably in a better social situation that Argath himself(which explains a lot thinking on it).
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Guile
Having a really great time right now
I do remember my Knight with White Magic being a real team player as a a kind of ad-hoc Paladin, although my memories are blurred enough that I don't remember what kind of numbers she was healing for.
I do appreciate that Argath is simultaneously, 'Why are you so wroth, it's like you think they're people', 'Well, be a little baby then' and 'By the way, this is the secret attack plan. Godspeed, friend' here.
There's just enough of an actual human inside him that you feel bad he's like this. Ramza probably is the closest thing to a friend he has.
I swear Argath, I just want to bounce your face off the curb twice, and then we can be friends again
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's an attempt to maintain the image of the chibi-fied characters from the early sprite games. FFT isn't the only game that did it. I don't think it worked too well. For the battle sprites, fine. But in the cutscenes...not so much.
What the fuck this line blows "blame yourself or God" out of the fucking water. RIP to Delita whose face was just blasted halfway across the continent and found splattered in the Alps.
I think you have to have grown up in that time period, been a child or teen or even young adult who saw video games going from the crude first steps of Pong and Atari and the early Mario games to what the Genesis and the SNES showed that they could do with longer, story-based games. Especially important to remember that we in the west didn't get FF2 and FF3 until much later, so when we kids picked up the game titled Final Fantasy 2, a few of us were just old enough to remember "oh yeah that swords and sorcery game on the NES" while for most it was our very first story-heavy RPG.
...which opens with the Red Wings storming Mysidia, and follows on with the bombing of Mist Village, Cecil on the run from the Baron military, the destruction of Damcyan, etc, etc. A lot of where FF4 stumbles is in the mid-late game, but after such a strong opening, and with the game ending on a final boss as memorable as Zeromus, FF4 really knocked it out of the park. I wish I could find the old Nintendo Power issue, but when they ranked the top 100 SNES games they mentioned it almost came to blows on 4 or 6 being better.
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Thozmp
Gets my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine.
Well, since you've encountered them, I figure I can just add these.
Slow: "Time, rest and give your kindness to the worthy! Slow!"
Judgment Sword/Stasis Sword: "Life is short...Bury! Steady Sword!" (sic)
Northwain's Strike/Crush Punch: "The doom of a planet...Crush Punch!"
Shockwave/Earth Slash: "Earth's anger running through my arms! Earth Slash!"