Final Fantasy Tactics, Part 7.A: Zaland & Balias Tor
- 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 Lugria did verily get stalled for 'bout a week, stuck on character upgrade choices, verily forsooth.
The Story So Far: Ramza, scion of the noble House Beoulve, was betrayed by his own kin, who allowed his childhood friend Delita's sister to die. Separated from Delita, betrayed by his family, Ramza has abandoned the life of a noble and joined up with a mercenary band, only to be betrayed again by his new mentor after finding Delita again. Now tasked with seeing Princess Ovelia to safety, Ramza heads towards Lionel Castle, where Cardinal Delacroix could ensure Ovelia's safety…
I. The Inexplicable Gun
What's a Princess like mechanically, anyway?
Okay so basically Ovelia knows two spells, one which grants her every single protection buff at once, and one which cures every status effect at once. But not any healing. Nobles. Trust them to learn white magic and then use it to protect only themselves.
Anyway, I promptly strip Ovelia of her best equipment and give her current-level stuff, meaning Osric now gets to have a Wizard's Hat and Wizard's Robes.
Then on a reader's tip, I decide to backtrack to the previous town to check out the rumor tab, fighting some monsters on the way.
Only event of note is our first use of the Moogle summon. It's cute.
It looks like, even though we thwarted the plan to kill the princess (so far), it's still serving Larg's interests of pinning the blame on Goltanna. We could make the truth clear by revealing the Princess's whereabouts and Larg's treachery, but… For that we would need to not be in their personal area of influence where the Northern Sky can intervene at will. Making ourselves public while in Gariland or Dorter seems foolish.
Also, I finally remembered to change Ramza's ability set to account for one of his new, unique Squire Abilities.
Tailwind is a support ability that increases Speed.
"Oh, like Haste?" you say. No. Not like Haste. Haste wears off. It lasts about three turns.
Tailwind increases Speed by +1 for the rest of the battle.
The effect is not immediately noticeable. At first, it honestly seems like a waste of a move. But if you just keep using Tailwind the effect kind of… Not snowballs exactly, it's not exponential, but it becomes incredibly noticeable. A character with Speed 5 acts every 20 ticks; a character with Speed 6 acts every 17 ticks; at Speed 7 they act every 15 ticks. It's not quite enough for a character to be taking two actions for every enemy one unless Ramza keeps spamming it forever, but at the same time, Tailwind being there means Ramza never has to Wait; any time his turn ends without an enemy in attack range, he can Tailwind himself or an ally. The action efficiency ends up kind of ridiculous going forward, though I'm slow to get the hang of it.
It's also, more importantly, an incredible means of maintaining JP/XP efficiency. Every time Ramza uses Tailwind, he gets XP and JP. Every time another character acts, they get JP and XP if their action succeeds. So Ramza can give the character you want more JP for more actions per battle, all while maintaining maximum JP income for himself. The effects of this are going to end up visible by the end of this update.
Another battle. Between Shockwave and Tailwind, there is never a turn in which Ramza is not taking meaningful combat action.
I decide to take a little time to practice my new skills against random encounters, testing the benefits of Tailwind and grinding JP for Hadrian to unlock Horizontal Jump 8. I also have Hester unlock Chakra, a Monk Ability that allows them to self-heal - another way to maintain JP gain on 'lost' turn if she's hurt, plus some appreciated survivability.
A monster encounter featuring a Knight and Archers alongside undead. It's growing increasingly apparent that many human bandits just team up with monsters and cooperate to prey on travelers.
Now, before we go on with the plot, there's just one thing. A new Errand has opened up Gariland, the Magick City. It's the Gariland Magick Melee: A tourney in which combatants are only allowed to use magic, held by the Gariland Mages' Guild for the 13th consecutive year. I decide to swap Hester into Geomancer, Gillian into Orator, and send them both with Hadrian to take part. A couple weeks later, we're back for news.
It's a tremendous success. The opponents were fierce, but our team won the day, and claimed the grand prize.
A prize which is.
Guys.
Guys.
THE GRAND PRIZE IS AN ASSAULT RIFLE!?
It's a fucking Pastel Colored AK-47. What the hell. What is the item description for this goddamned thing?
Enchanted Machinegun: "Guns of this type are said to have been used aboard airships in the days of yore. Their bullets could be used for different purposes, depending on the magick with which they were infused."
…
They had - fucking - they had airships and machine-guns!?
Oh yeah remember how the backstory of Saint Ajora and the Church of Glabados involves the ruling power of the time being sunken under the waves? Yeah I guess it wasn't just a medieval city being swallowed by the sea, it was Atlantis and we are in yet another post-apocalypse treading among the ruins of more Ancients.
I've been bamboozled yet again. This Final Fantasy game is in fact a Final Fantasy game.
God, the way it's so blatantly literally just an assault rifle but also magic, god. And airships? We haven't even heard of airships mentioned even once!
Well never mind. Let's advance to our next destination - the Castled City of Zaland.
II. Castle City Zaland
A young man is being cornered by a group of soldiers who want him to deliver a stone, though he claims he doesn't know what they're talking about. He's a poor liar, unfortunately.
Swordsman: "Do not play the fool with me, Mustadio! Do you forget that we hold your father? It's simple. Give us the auracite, and your father lives." [There is no response.] "Right, then. Seize him!"
[Mustadio clambers up the wall.]
Mustadio: "I have a message for your keeper, Ludovich! Tell him that if he lays so much as a finger on my father, he'll never see the auracite again!"
[At this point, our party enters.]
Agrias: "What trouble is this? I think that man is being chased."
At this point, we are given the choice to say "I'd sooner avoid trouble, but we have no choice" or "We cannot stand by and watch!" Picking the latter gives us the objective to Protect Mustadio, and battle begins.
Unfortunately, it begins from the worst position ever.
Look at this dogshit placement. All the enemies are on the other side of this wall, which was one door at one corner of the screen, and to make it worse, we're down an incline such that characters without sufficient Jump ratings will need to do a complete Z-pattern before enemies are even within range. This is one of the worst map starts in the game.
It does highlight the importance of the Jump rating, though. Consider:
Ramza and Hadrian are able to essentially advance in a straight line, jumping both the cliff and the battlements and suffering no movement penalty. Osric and Hester, meanwhile, need to take the long way round, wasting two or more turns just getting into position to do anything.
Also, let's take a look at the effects of Hadrian's new Jump.
God, this is ridiculous.
Jump will remain difficult to get full use out of until we can purchase a decent Vertical Jump rating; right now, Hadrian can only jump to tiles that are within ~1 height range of his (that includes 'down'; you can see that even from his elevated position he can't hit down at any of the opponents). But any such tile he can reach from pretty much the entire map. Having a character capable of orbital striking any tile at will is so cool I'm pretty much committed to going for the maximum vertical jump distance as well, even if it takes time. For now, though, reaching this high an elevation ironically makes Jump useless until enemies start catching up.
…
I end up closing the game after a couple of moves without saving to restart before the battle, though, because this is where The Brain Spiders are swarming in. I am getting severe decision paralysis. Several of my characters have JP counts in the high hundreds that I haven't spent on anything. Ramza is a lv 7 Monk and I'm like, do I want him to stay a monk? Shouldn't he start branching out into something else? What about Osric, which Summons are actually good? I've put Hester through two levels of Geomancer but I am just, I have no idea what to even do with Geomancer, the idea of a terrain-dependent class is anathema to my every instinct.
Anyway, after taking a break and poking the thread, I've been given indications on two unlockable classes that I likely would not have stumbled upon myself, and that helps.
Basically: I'm going to level Ramza to Monk 5/Knight 4/Dragoon 2 and see what that unlocks, while leveling Hester into Thief 5/Archer 4/Geomancer 2 and see what that unlocks. That gives me a clear path forward for the two characters I'm most lost as to what to do with. Meanwhile, Hadrian can just keep leveling Dragoon until Maximum Jumping Power is achieved, Osric can just collect more Pokémon, and I'm trying out the Orator class with Gillian (previously Mystic/White Mage). If in the process we run into recruitable named NPCs that will be something else, but for now that hasn't happened.
As for Ramza's stores of unspent JP, I decide to do an unorthodox move. You see, I could buy two, three, maybe even four of the Martial Arts Abilities from Monk, and by all appearances this would be a very strong choice; Monk's combination of close-up offense, ranged offense, and sustainability makes it a very self-sufficient class that can even raise downed allies.
However, there is this:
First Strike is an ability that advertises itself as a kind of preemptive Counter - you hit before the enemy's attack. The benefit seems marginal, but the potential of killing an opponent before they complete their attack seems nice enough that I decide to go for it anyway.
Now let's head back into the fray and save Mustadio!
…
Mustadio moves towards the enemy Black Mages instead of away from them, instantly takes two spells to the face, and dies before I am able to get my characters in a position to support him.
And that's a game over.
*Heavy sigh*
Whatever.
Let's head back to the forest to practice with our new skillsets first.
Our first outing is very nearly a disaster. Orator is just… Not a very capable job. Gillian is able to raise Faith and Bravery, which I intended to buff magic power and Hester's Bravery, but the success rate of her support abilities is 55%, which results in a ton of wasted turns (and no JP gained).
Also Ramza and Hester are now both briefly Archers and Archer just, like. Feels bad. And results in a severe loss in raw effectiveness.
Fortunately, I don't have to suffer through this for long. After merely two battles, Ramza has acquired enough JP to level out of Archer and into Thief, which he will need to rank up to lv 4 to unlock Dragoon. Hester, meanwhile, is locked into Archer for a few more levels.
Now let's head back to the main story.
Look at this. These red lines are Hadrian's jumping range. Even without vertical Jump, Hadrian can reach almost any tile on the map that is at the same level of elevation that he is. That means, if I want to strike any enemy, I need only check the level of elevation on their tile and their CT count, then move Hadrian to a tile at the same elevation, and then he will drop kick them from the sky. And the damage! The damage is real nice.
As I've stated before, the main problem here is for my units with low base Jump. They can't cross the ramparts or the small cliff, so they have to go the long way around. Hester basically can't do anything, but Gillian can at least try to Preach to herself.
You see, it's been pointing out that Gillian's Faith of 59 is pretty low for a magic class… But she was literally my female unit with the highest Faith in the base roster, and all the potential new recruits the game offered me at the start had even worse Faith. But.
Here's how Preach and Praise work: Each time you use Preach, the targeted unit's Faith rises by 4 for the rest of the fight… And by 1 permanently. The same is true of how Praise affects Bravery.
So I can just put Gillian through a course of self-brainwashing, frantically muttering prayers to herself until she finally starts to believe. It fails about half the time, but any success permanently modifies her attributes.
We'll make a Beverly Keane out of you yet, Gillian.
Ramza as a Thief isn't exactly wowing the crowd, but he has high mobility and deals okay damage. Frankly, I almost get more use out of him spamming Tailwind to either make Hadrian into a murder machine or give Hester more chances to gain JP with Archer actions.
Still, what matters is that right now, we have the high ground, we've killed one of their BLMs, the Knights can't easily attack us, and Hester and Gillian are… slowly… moving into position.
If you could just move it up a little, girls, please.
A major problem in this fight is that Agrias, one of our heavy hitters, decides to just… Hang back. She just stick to outside the wall, casting White Magic spells instead of sword skills. While I do appreciate the extra healing, I would really rather she kill the enemy with her superlative knight abilities.
This is made up for, however, by Mustadio finally feeling he's in a safe position and can retaliate instead of running away using potions…
…and so he starts blasting.
Mustadio's job is Machinist, and his special ability is Pulling Out A Glock. I don't know if you can see it in the picture above, but he is literally using a handgun to shoot at this enemy archer.
This is not as surprising as it would be if we hadn't just completed that errant and landed the ancient magical AR-15. But it is pretty surprising. I think this is the first appearance of the Machinist class in FF history, which would go on to become one of FFXIV's many jobs. Did Mustadio pull that gun from an ancient ruin, or did he build it him himself? The War of the Roses which provides some inspiration for FFT's story did feature early gunpowder weapons, but nothing like the convenient pistol Mustadio is using here.
Mustadio's gun is, as far as I can tell, just straight up better than bows and crossbows. It has no minimum range, a high maximum range, and it deals considerable damage. Mustadio certainly outdamages my own archers. In the face of this assault, this remote Archer who was going in for the finish instead drinks a potion and retreats.
From there, the battle splits into two sides. One is a messy melee in the bottom right corner, where everyone is hugging the same chunk of wall that's sloped enough for someone to jump up and down of, where the last Black Mage flees while in critical and a Knight decides to engage Agrias in Melee, rending her Golden Helm.
The other is on the left side, where Hester takes control of the central plaza to fire at either of the enemy Archers while Mustadio continues sniping the last Archer in a corner, with Gillian either preaching to herself or deploying white magic as needed.
Unfortunately for the enemy side, their Black Mage misjudges and fires a spell at Agrias while both himself and one of the Knights are on both sides of her. This deals 61 damage to Agrias, but it also takes out both the BLM and the KNT. A suicide attack that didn't even take down its target.
This leaves Hadrian, Ramza and Gillian to take turns beating on the last Knight while Hester murders the two Archers from a distance. It's pretty brutal, but most brutal is the last shot, fired by Mustadio from his perch.
I wouldn't want to be on the other side of this scenario.
Ramza: "Are you all right?"
Mustadio: "I should be, yes. Thank you. You saved my life."
Cut for image count.
The Story So Far: Ramza, scion of the noble House Beoulve, was betrayed by his own kin, who allowed his childhood friend Delita's sister to die. Separated from Delita, betrayed by his family, Ramza has abandoned the life of a noble and joined up with a mercenary band, only to be betrayed again by his new mentor after finding Delita again. Now tasked with seeing Princess Ovelia to safety, Ramza heads towards Lionel Castle, where Cardinal Delacroix could ensure Ovelia's safety…
I. The Inexplicable Gun
What's a Princess like mechanically, anyway?
Okay so basically Ovelia knows two spells, one which grants her every single protection buff at once, and one which cures every status effect at once. But not any healing. Nobles. Trust them to learn white magic and then use it to protect only themselves.
Anyway, I promptly strip Ovelia of her best equipment and give her current-level stuff, meaning Osric now gets to have a Wizard's Hat and Wizard's Robes.
Then on a reader's tip, I decide to backtrack to the previous town to check out the rumor tab, fighting some monsters on the way.
Only event of note is our first use of the Moogle summon. It's cute.
It looks like, even though we thwarted the plan to kill the princess (so far), it's still serving Larg's interests of pinning the blame on Goltanna. We could make the truth clear by revealing the Princess's whereabouts and Larg's treachery, but… For that we would need to not be in their personal area of influence where the Northern Sky can intervene at will. Making ourselves public while in Gariland or Dorter seems foolish.
Also, I finally remembered to change Ramza's ability set to account for one of his new, unique Squire Abilities.
Tailwind is a support ability that increases Speed.
"Oh, like Haste?" you say. No. Not like Haste. Haste wears off. It lasts about three turns.
Tailwind increases Speed by +1 for the rest of the battle.
The effect is not immediately noticeable. At first, it honestly seems like a waste of a move. But if you just keep using Tailwind the effect kind of… Not snowballs exactly, it's not exponential, but it becomes incredibly noticeable. A character with Speed 5 acts every 20 ticks; a character with Speed 6 acts every 17 ticks; at Speed 7 they act every 15 ticks. It's not quite enough for a character to be taking two actions for every enemy one unless Ramza keeps spamming it forever, but at the same time, Tailwind being there means Ramza never has to Wait; any time his turn ends without an enemy in attack range, he can Tailwind himself or an ally. The action efficiency ends up kind of ridiculous going forward, though I'm slow to get the hang of it.
It's also, more importantly, an incredible means of maintaining JP/XP efficiency. Every time Ramza uses Tailwind, he gets XP and JP. Every time another character acts, they get JP and XP if their action succeeds. So Ramza can give the character you want more JP for more actions per battle, all while maintaining maximum JP income for himself. The effects of this are going to end up visible by the end of this update.
Another battle. Between Shockwave and Tailwind, there is never a turn in which Ramza is not taking meaningful combat action.
I decide to take a little time to practice my new skills against random encounters, testing the benefits of Tailwind and grinding JP for Hadrian to unlock Horizontal Jump 8. I also have Hester unlock Chakra, a Monk Ability that allows them to self-heal - another way to maintain JP gain on 'lost' turn if she's hurt, plus some appreciated survivability.
A monster encounter featuring a Knight and Archers alongside undead. It's growing increasingly apparent that many human bandits just team up with monsters and cooperate to prey on travelers.
Now, before we go on with the plot, there's just one thing. A new Errand has opened up Gariland, the Magick City. It's the Gariland Magick Melee: A tourney in which combatants are only allowed to use magic, held by the Gariland Mages' Guild for the 13th consecutive year. I decide to swap Hester into Geomancer, Gillian into Orator, and send them both with Hadrian to take part. A couple weeks later, we're back for news.
It's a tremendous success. The opponents were fierce, but our team won the day, and claimed the grand prize.
A prize which is.
Guys.
Guys.
It's a fucking Pastel Colored AK-47. What the hell. What is the item description for this goddamned thing?
Enchanted Machinegun: "Guns of this type are said to have been used aboard airships in the days of yore. Their bullets could be used for different purposes, depending on the magick with which they were infused."
…
They had - fucking - they had airships and machine-guns!?
Oh yeah remember how the backstory of Saint Ajora and the Church of Glabados involves the ruling power of the time being sunken under the waves? Yeah I guess it wasn't just a medieval city being swallowed by the sea, it was Atlantis and we are in yet another post-apocalypse treading among the ruins of more Ancients.
I've been bamboozled yet again. This Final Fantasy game is in fact a Final Fantasy game.
God, the way it's so blatantly literally just an assault rifle but also magic, god. And airships? We haven't even heard of airships mentioned even once!
Well never mind. Let's advance to our next destination - the Castled City of Zaland.
II. Castle City Zaland
A young man is being cornered by a group of soldiers who want him to deliver a stone, though he claims he doesn't know what they're talking about. He's a poor liar, unfortunately.
Swordsman: "Do not play the fool with me, Mustadio! Do you forget that we hold your father? It's simple. Give us the auracite, and your father lives." [There is no response.] "Right, then. Seize him!"
[Mustadio clambers up the wall.]
Mustadio: "I have a message for your keeper, Ludovich! Tell him that if he lays so much as a finger on my father, he'll never see the auracite again!"
[At this point, our party enters.]
Agrias: "What trouble is this? I think that man is being chased."
At this point, we are given the choice to say "I'd sooner avoid trouble, but we have no choice" or "We cannot stand by and watch!" Picking the latter gives us the objective to Protect Mustadio, and battle begins.
Unfortunately, it begins from the worst position ever.
Look at this dogshit placement. All the enemies are on the other side of this wall, which was one door at one corner of the screen, and to make it worse, we're down an incline such that characters without sufficient Jump ratings will need to do a complete Z-pattern before enemies are even within range. This is one of the worst map starts in the game.
It does highlight the importance of the Jump rating, though. Consider:
Ramza and Hadrian are able to essentially advance in a straight line, jumping both the cliff and the battlements and suffering no movement penalty. Osric and Hester, meanwhile, need to take the long way round, wasting two or more turns just getting into position to do anything.
Also, let's take a look at the effects of Hadrian's new Jump.
God, this is ridiculous.
Jump will remain difficult to get full use out of until we can purchase a decent Vertical Jump rating; right now, Hadrian can only jump to tiles that are within ~1 height range of his (that includes 'down'; you can see that even from his elevated position he can't hit down at any of the opponents). But any such tile he can reach from pretty much the entire map. Having a character capable of orbital striking any tile at will is so cool I'm pretty much committed to going for the maximum vertical jump distance as well, even if it takes time. For now, though, reaching this high an elevation ironically makes Jump useless until enemies start catching up.
…
I end up closing the game after a couple of moves without saving to restart before the battle, though, because this is where The Brain Spiders are swarming in. I am getting severe decision paralysis. Several of my characters have JP counts in the high hundreds that I haven't spent on anything. Ramza is a lv 7 Monk and I'm like, do I want him to stay a monk? Shouldn't he start branching out into something else? What about Osric, which Summons are actually good? I've put Hester through two levels of Geomancer but I am just, I have no idea what to even do with Geomancer, the idea of a terrain-dependent class is anathema to my every instinct.
Anyway, after taking a break and poking the thread, I've been given indications on two unlockable classes that I likely would not have stumbled upon myself, and that helps.
Basically: I'm going to level Ramza to Monk 5/Knight 4/Dragoon 2 and see what that unlocks, while leveling Hester into Thief 5/Archer 4/Geomancer 2 and see what that unlocks. That gives me a clear path forward for the two characters I'm most lost as to what to do with. Meanwhile, Hadrian can just keep leveling Dragoon until Maximum Jumping Power is achieved, Osric can just collect more Pokémon, and I'm trying out the Orator class with Gillian (previously Mystic/White Mage). If in the process we run into recruitable named NPCs that will be something else, but for now that hasn't happened.
As for Ramza's stores of unspent JP, I decide to do an unorthodox move. You see, I could buy two, three, maybe even four of the Martial Arts Abilities from Monk, and by all appearances this would be a very strong choice; Monk's combination of close-up offense, ranged offense, and sustainability makes it a very self-sufficient class that can even raise downed allies.
However, there is this:
First Strike is an ability that advertises itself as a kind of preemptive Counter - you hit before the enemy's attack. The benefit seems marginal, but the potential of killing an opponent before they complete their attack seems nice enough that I decide to go for it anyway.
Now let's head back into the fray and save Mustadio!
…
Mustadio moves towards the enemy Black Mages instead of away from them, instantly takes two spells to the face, and dies before I am able to get my characters in a position to support him.
And that's a game over.
*Heavy sigh*
Whatever.
Let's head back to the forest to practice with our new skillsets first.
Our first outing is very nearly a disaster. Orator is just… Not a very capable job. Gillian is able to raise Faith and Bravery, which I intended to buff magic power and Hester's Bravery, but the success rate of her support abilities is 55%, which results in a ton of wasted turns (and no JP gained).
Also Ramza and Hester are now both briefly Archers and Archer just, like. Feels bad. And results in a severe loss in raw effectiveness.
Fortunately, I don't have to suffer through this for long. After merely two battles, Ramza has acquired enough JP to level out of Archer and into Thief, which he will need to rank up to lv 4 to unlock Dragoon. Hester, meanwhile, is locked into Archer for a few more levels.
Now let's head back to the main story.
Look at this. These red lines are Hadrian's jumping range. Even without vertical Jump, Hadrian can reach almost any tile on the map that is at the same level of elevation that he is. That means, if I want to strike any enemy, I need only check the level of elevation on their tile and their CT count, then move Hadrian to a tile at the same elevation, and then he will drop kick them from the sky. And the damage! The damage is real nice.
As I've stated before, the main problem here is for my units with low base Jump. They can't cross the ramparts or the small cliff, so they have to go the long way around. Hester basically can't do anything, but Gillian can at least try to Preach to herself.
You see, it's been pointing out that Gillian's Faith of 59 is pretty low for a magic class… But she was literally my female unit with the highest Faith in the base roster, and all the potential new recruits the game offered me at the start had even worse Faith. But.
Here's how Preach and Praise work: Each time you use Preach, the targeted unit's Faith rises by 4 for the rest of the fight… And by 1 permanently. The same is true of how Praise affects Bravery.
So I can just put Gillian through a course of self-brainwashing, frantically muttering prayers to herself until she finally starts to believe. It fails about half the time, but any success permanently modifies her attributes.
We'll make a Beverly Keane out of you yet, Gillian.
Ramza as a Thief isn't exactly wowing the crowd, but he has high mobility and deals okay damage. Frankly, I almost get more use out of him spamming Tailwind to either make Hadrian into a murder machine or give Hester more chances to gain JP with Archer actions.
Still, what matters is that right now, we have the high ground, we've killed one of their BLMs, the Knights can't easily attack us, and Hester and Gillian are… slowly… moving into position.
If you could just move it up a little, girls, please.
A major problem in this fight is that Agrias, one of our heavy hitters, decides to just… Hang back. She just stick to outside the wall, casting White Magic spells instead of sword skills. While I do appreciate the extra healing, I would really rather she kill the enemy with her superlative knight abilities.
This is made up for, however, by Mustadio finally feeling he's in a safe position and can retaliate instead of running away using potions…
…and so he starts blasting.
Mustadio's job is Machinist, and his special ability is Pulling Out A Glock. I don't know if you can see it in the picture above, but he is literally using a handgun to shoot at this enemy archer.
This is not as surprising as it would be if we hadn't just completed that errant and landed the ancient magical AR-15. But it is pretty surprising. I think this is the first appearance of the Machinist class in FF history, which would go on to become one of FFXIV's many jobs. Did Mustadio pull that gun from an ancient ruin, or did he build it him himself? The War of the Roses which provides some inspiration for FFT's story did feature early gunpowder weapons, but nothing like the convenient pistol Mustadio is using here.
Mustadio's gun is, as far as I can tell, just straight up better than bows and crossbows. It has no minimum range, a high maximum range, and it deals considerable damage. Mustadio certainly outdamages my own archers. In the face of this assault, this remote Archer who was going in for the finish instead drinks a potion and retreats.
From there, the battle splits into two sides. One is a messy melee in the bottom right corner, where everyone is hugging the same chunk of wall that's sloped enough for someone to jump up and down of, where the last Black Mage flees while in critical and a Knight decides to engage Agrias in Melee, rending her Golden Helm.
The other is on the left side, where Hester takes control of the central plaza to fire at either of the enemy Archers while Mustadio continues sniping the last Archer in a corner, with Gillian either preaching to herself or deploying white magic as needed.
Unfortunately for the enemy side, their Black Mage misjudges and fires a spell at Agrias while both himself and one of the Knights are on both sides of her. This deals 61 damage to Agrias, but it also takes out both the BLM and the KNT. A suicide attack that didn't even take down its target.
This leaves Hadrian, Ramza and Gillian to take turns beating on the last Knight while Hester murders the two Archers from a distance. It's pretty brutal, but most brutal is the last shot, fired by Mustadio from his perch.
I wouldn't want to be on the other side of this scenario.
Ramza: "Are you all right?"
Mustadio: "I should be, yes. Thank you. You saved my life."
Cut for image count.
