Bringing this up because nobody else did but gaffgaion sword in the second fight is actually a really good item to loot, its a sword that heals on hit like a mini version of his dk skill its a good reward for levelling a thief tbh. Its also likely a I win button for the duel, havent done it since ive been busy but I expect Ramsa to cheese him with it.
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Let's Play
Final Fantasy Tactics, Part 10: The End of Chapter 2
- 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, né Beoulve, slew his once-mentor Gaffgarion. Woe! Sorrow! Tragedy! But more horror is yet to come, in this spoooooky All Hallow's Eve update! (Ignore the date.)
The Story So Far: Ramza, scion of the noble House Beoulve, took up the life of a wandering mercenary without allegiance after being betrayed by his own kin. He was roused from this torpor by his chance meeting with his childhood friend Delita and Princess Ovelia, whom he now seeks to save from the daggers of assassins. He now rushes to Lionel Castle to save Ovelia, but unbeknownst to him, Delita has already stolen the Princess away; all that awaits Ramza is a meeting with His Eminence, Cardinal Delacroix…
The Delita fight/cutscene is directly followed by a prompt to save the game, which itself is followed by access to our party roster menu so that we can tweak jobs, abilities, and equipment, clear indication that we're in on for one hell of a fight ahead. I elect to leave Hadrian at home because, now that we've had the gate ceiling trick, I'm not confident Jump will work if our next battle is indoors, as seems likely considering we're heading into Lionel Castle.
The name of our next location is Lionel Castle Oratory. Will the Cardinal speechify at us?
Cardinal Delacroix: "I see Gaffgarion's sword was no match for his words. Then again, perhaps the fault lies with his adversary. Beoulve blood is not given to spill easily. Even when thinned with that of a courtesan, it would seem.
[Delacroix descends from the pulpit to stand at the stairs.]
Cardinal Delacroix: "But enough is enough. Your intrusions overstay their welcome. Leave the auracite, and then leave Lionel. A generous offer, and my last."
Ramza: "Where is Lady Ovelia?"
Cardinal Delacroix: "You mean to free her? What then? You've turned your back on your house. A man cannot prosecute a war alone. Forget this bootless struggle. Think you mere *will* enough to see you victorious? Even will needs force, and you have none."
It's always with the rationales - 'you've left your house,' 'you can't win a war alone,' 'you need more soldiers,' 'you can't keep the princess safe', all to avoid answering the straightforward question "It's bad to abduct, use and kill people for my political gain."
Ramza: "Tell me where the princess is!"
Cardinal Delacroix: "Gone to Zeltennia. Her Highness has chosen to accept our hand in aid over yours."
Ramza: "You lie!"
Cardinal Delacroix: "Her Highness has taken her first step toward the throne. But she will need a steady hand to guide her, and yours falters. Who better, then, than us to stand at her side? She saw this - why not you? There's no reason you should not join us as well. The thought of besting your brothers holds no allure? We care no less for this world's fate than you. Together we can change Ivalice for the better."
Ramza: "I have no wish to change the world. But nor can I stand by while men suffer and die on the whim of some select few. Do you truly believe you can change the world? Not even I am so naive as that."
Cardinal Delacroix: "That Stone you hold can twist the very weave of nature, to say nothing of the world. Yet I fear my words are wasted on you. Actions speak louder, yes?"
Hrm.
Okay I have a couple of questions here.
First off: I was initially confused as to Delacroix saying he had Ovelia sent to Zeltennia (and Delita also saying so earlier during their cutscene). Zeltannia is Goltanna's Duchy, and we've been told explicitly that if Goltanna got his hands on Ovelia, he would immediately hand her over to Larg to save his own head (as he is currently widely believed to have had Ovelia abducted/assassinated, which could result in his disgrace and even death), which would result in Ovelia dying anyway. So why send her there? This will eventually become clearer, but it's initially a bit of a swerve.
More importantly…
Why is Ramza even doing this?
His goal was to save Princess Ovelia from certain death at the hands of the Dukes. But - assuming Delacroix isn't lying - Ovelia has now decided to accept Delacroix's "aid" and now has new allies. Ramza… Can no longer save her from Delacroix because there is no need to save her. The Cardinal is now actively protecting her to further his own ends. Killing Delacroix here will not be any help. What reason does Ramza have to fight now?
What was previously a very practical conflict about saving one specific person has now turned into a much more abstract battle of ideas, and it's kind of an awkward fit, because Ramza previously has pointedly not been ideological so far - his motivation has previously been of the 'save the person in front of me' kind, it's weird that he has suddenly turned into a 'better things aren't possible, you fool, you idiot, you absolute buffoon' status quo fighter.
Sure, Delacroix is a treacherous liar and hypocrite, his way of doing things is likely to bring about great harm, and he intends to manipulate Ovelia as a figurehead to advance his secret faction's agenda - all valid reasons to object to him getting any kind of power! But that's not what Ramza is saying, what he's saying is "I have no wish to change the world" and "Even I am not so naive as to think I can change the world." Really? You don't? Where does this passivity come from? Has this world not wronged you enough, Ramza?
Perhaps it's just the PTSD talking. The fear of failure, of letting down people again, of causing more tragedy, that has Ramza refusing to acknowledge his own potential to bring about change.
Maybe if we let this discussion play out, we would find out that he can't find a reason to murder the good Cardinal in his own home when Ovelia isn't even there anymore and he'd just… Leave.
So it's fortunate Delacroix is going to force his hand.
Now.
We know that in this setting, even older men can be powerful fighters. We know magic is a potent weapon, and one that is directly linked to one's Faith. We know Delacroix was not above murdering Ludovich Baert in cold blood. So at this point, my expectations are set: Delacroix will summon his men into the oratory, and we'll start another close quarter battle, surrounded, against a smattering of knightly classes and mages, with Delacroix as a more powerful than usual mage of some kind.
Well. I was wrong.
The Cardinal produces the Zodiac Stone…
Oh, Final Fantasy.
What the fuck is that.
Jesus Christ. This is giving me the same vibes as the Darmine Doggy Door sketch from I Think You Should Leave. "That's gonna kill me! That's real! That lives with us here on Earth!" What a horrible, horrible thing.
Wait, speaking of Jesus Christ. Aren't the Auracites supposed to be associated with the Zodiac Braves? Aren't they supposed to summon/hold the power of the ancient heroes who fought with Ajora? Why the fuck is it turning you into A HIDEOUS MASS OF STITCHED GREY FLESH. Guess the legends weren't quite right!! You actually use the auracite to turn into a demon from hell!? Oh and he's called Cuchulainn the Impure, which on the one hand is entirely random but on the other hand kinda kicks ass, not gonna lie.
Cuchulainn: "You take no pains to hide your wonderment. How I shall delight to watch you die. Each excruciating ecstasy!"
[OBJECTIVE: DEFEAT CUCHULAINN!]
Well, the good news is, he can talk. The bad news is, he's not just ugly, he's also plain fucking evil.
Great news, gang: Cuchulainn's HP, MP, and CT are all hidden. I'm also pretty sure he's immune to status effects. If this is a forecast of how every solo monster boss is going to be in the game going forward, that's going to be very annoying.
Cuchulainn goes first, and his opening move is 'Nightmare.'
Final Fantasy Tactics released in 1997. Fullmetal Alchemist began serialization in 2001. I suspect one may have influenced the other here.
Cuchulainn opens his chest like a horrible maw filled with teeth, targeting characters in a cross AoE in which he inflicts either Sleep, or Doom. In this case, Mustadio, Gillian, and Hester are all put to Sleep, leaving only Ramza and Agrias awake and able to act. Then Cuchulainn - unbefitting of his mythological inspiration - withdraws to the back of the oratory, where I need to have my two remaining guys chase him.
Binding Darkness is dealing terribly low damage, only 36 HP, and Cuchulainn has actually withdrawn so far that Agrias - whose movement range is very short, and who could really use some levels in Thief for Move+2 - can't actually get within Sword Skill range. On his next turn, Cuchulainn moves back closer to the group, using Nightmare on my sleeping units again.
Nightmare can hit pretty much the entire room from a central position.
This time, Hester is afflicted with Doom. I haven't talked about Doom much because it's only rarely come up; as a status effect, Doom puts a timer on a character's head, the same as a KO'd character's dying counter. After three turns, they're KO. Like other buffs and debuffs, this is tied to a character's CT gauge; characters with very high Speed will die quicker, and a character who is Sleeping will not accrue Doom turns. This will be relevant.
For now, Cuchulainn moving back in allows Ramza and Agrias to gang up on him with Cleansing Strike and Spirit Blade, with Cleansing Strike doing considerably more damage - could it be that Cuchulainn is weak to Holy?
Cuchulainn keeps moving around the room casting Nightmare, stacking Doom on Gillian and Ramza next. The picture looks like this:
Ramza is on a timer, and when he goes down no one can revive him until the sleepers are awake. Hester and Gillian are in a suspended state, their Doom counter won't move until they wake up. So far, it seems like Cu is using a simple tactic, just spamming Nightmare to disable most of my team and run the Doom counter on the ones that are active. That's an interesting tactic, but it can't be too difficult to deal with…
Until he pulls out Bioga.
Bioga's AoE is so wide it hits essentially everyone, Ramza being the only one to escape it, for massive damage. This also causes everyone to wake up at once, and their Doom counters to start ticking. No worries, right? I'll just have everyone corner the big guy and take turns kicking his shins until it goes down while Gillian uses Cura to keep everyone topped up.
Cu slips through the cracks and Biogas the clumped-together party, instantly taking out Agrias, Gillian and Mustadio and leaving me with only Ramza and Hester surviving. On the next turn, their Doom counters tick down, and it's Game Over.
I… don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that.
This is our first fight with what - by contrast with standard Monsters - I'm going to call a 'demonic' boss. Cuchulainn's HP count is enormous, able to tank at least 300 damage, all his values are hidden from us, he uses non-standard moves whose effects we have to discover mid-fight, and his overall battle plan is completely unique and requires reassessing as a whole new kind of threat.
He's also disturbing as fuck.
What did Cardinal Delacroix do to himself? Is he even still in there, inside that thing? Delacroix was an asshole, but "I will take delight in watching each of your excruciating deaths" doesn't sound like something he'd say. Fuck, sorry, each excruciating ecstasy.
*pause*
*slow blinking*
Wait, I was about to make a joke about "this guy is a fucking Cenobite" and post a picture of Pinhead, the most famous of the Hellraiser entities.
But.
I've spoilered the following picture to avoid blasting my unfortunate readership with Hellraiser costumes - heavily BDSM body horror monsters below:
That guy on the right of the picture? His name is (apologies) 'Butterball,' and his two defining features are being fat with multiple chins, and having a vertical gash in his chest with stitches/hooks digging into its sides - and he's often depicted with his two hands around this gash, as if he were about to pull it open it like a mouth.
So, uh, yeah. I'm pretty sure Cuchulainn, the Impure, is directly inspired by Butterball the Cenobite. What was it Pinhead said in the movie?
"Explorers, in the further regions of experience. Demons to some, angels to others." "The Cenobites gave me an experience beyond limits. Pain and pleasure, indivisible." That sure sounds something like "Each excruciating ecstasy"!
I'm saying this because I think this may be more than just a visual reference. The Zodiac Stones were supposed to be associated with the Zodiac Braves, with essentially saints/apostles of the setting's main religion, and be some means of calling back to their legacy or summoning them? And here is a Cardinal of the Church of Glabados, one of the most powerful figures of the Ivalician faith, using one of these stones to turn himself into a terrifying demon that delights in agony. Was it by mistake or design? Could it be that the saints and devils of the Church of Glabados were always one and the same? That the Zodiac Braves and the Lucavi were somehow conflated by history, mistaken one for the other, or two sides of the same coin? "Demons to some, angels to others." Food for thought.
For now, we have to kill him.
I'm pretty sure the shops back in town sold items that could protect from Sleep, and maybe even from Doom. Unfortunately, I had not expected to be locked into three battles in a row, so I didn't think to stock up on those in case I needed them later, figuring I could always just backtrack if needed. Now I'm stuck - if I want to buy those items I will need to replay both the Gaffgarion and Delita battles and all their cutscenes.
So let's just brute force our way through.
Unfortunately Esuna is too expensive for Gillian to purchase at this stage.
The fight starts much the same - unfortunately my deployment area is too small to easily spread out my units and avoid Nightmare's AoE. Cuchulainn opens by putting Mustadio and Gillian in Sleep and inflicting Doom on Hester.
As a Ninja, Hester has the ability to Throw items. Like Chemist, she has to unlock each throwable item individually - Knives, Swords, Flails, Katanas, etc. These mostly just seem like a way to dispose of excess inventory and I'm not really interested in digging deep into them. The two unique throwable are more interesting: Shurikens are cheap, low-damage Throw options that we can buy in bulk by the dozen. Bombs deal elemental damage (they only target one tile unfortunately, they're not AoE grenades). But they deal a lot more damage than I thought; a single lightning or ice bomb deals 80 damage to Cuchulainn, at range. This is higher than either Mustadio and Gillian's gun attacks, or Agrias's sword skill. Last time Hester effectively sat out the fight, but this time she had the 'luck' of taking Doom rather than Sleep from Cu's opening Nightmare, so she can throw in a few solid projectiles before death catches up to her.
Ramza unfortunately drew the short straw in this fight. Whether it's his physical attacks or his Iaido moves, none do more than half the damage Agrias is capable of inflicting with Cleansing Strike.
Hester falls, another Nightmare puts Ramza to sleep, leaving Agrias as the only active battlefield unit - and unfortunately, Cu also Doomed her along the way.
Everyone but Ramza has Doom, Hester is already KO and one turn away from permadeath, and Agrias is my only active unit. You can see how this fight hits different - the particular kind of stress it creates is entirely unique to it, no other enemy so far has been able to lock us down this thoroughly. 'How does the game deal with the action economy issue of having one big boss unit against five playable units taking turns every round'? I asked myself earlier. One answer was the Gaffgarion answer, locking Ramza into a 1v1 while his squad fights off against NPCs (which was, itself, an illusion we could break through). This is another answer: Mass disabling attacks that leave most of our party powerless and force us to do with very few units active at a time..
Cuchulainn attempts to use Biora against Agrias and Ramza. Amazingly, it whiffs. Then Gillian's Sleep counter runs out, and she wakes up. She is now Doomed - only three turns to act. But that barely matters. All that does is that she can now move up and Raise Hester one turn from her death counter running out.
Cuchulainn immediately casts Bioga for massive damage, taking down Hester (again) and Agrias (ouch). Mustadio and Gillian's Doom counters are nearly out. Ramza is asleep. It doesn't matter - the point here was to avoid Hester's counter ticking down to 0, leading to her permadeath and scraping the run.
Now remember - CT gauges continue to count up while a character is KO.
Gillian goes again, raises Hester a second time, and she goes immediately, stabbing the demon to death.
Cuchulainn, the Impure: "How strange that I, Undying, here should die. A death come early, ere my master could return…"
With a crackling of red lightning, Cuchulainn vanishes, leaving behind his Zodiac Stone.
…
So that wasn't Cardinal Delacroix, right? 'I, Undying,' 'Before my master could return'... I get the strong feeling that in attempting to summoning or transforming himself into Cuchulainn, Delacroix was subsumed into him. That Cuchulainn is an ancient entity of myth, a being from the shadow realm of the Lucavi, who had bided his time until now, whose designs are for the return of some kind of master…?
…
I can't see further ahead than I've played, but this seems very likely to be Final Fantasy Tactics' Jenova moment. The equivalent to when FF7's story about corporate greed and destructive technology and the ethics of ecoterrorism was hijacked by a monster from a nightmare who opened our characters' cells and carved a path of death through Shinra HQ. The politics of Ivalice are unfolding, the opening moves of the War of the Lions are being played out by Larg, Goltanna and the Church, a secret faction is making moves towards some unseen goals…
…and also Cardinals are turning into motherfucking demons from legends who delight in suffering for suffering's sake and await the return of their 'master,' probably the demon king of myth.
Final Fantasy Tactics is truly a Final Fantasy game.
It remains to be seen how this 'supernatural evil from legend' plot intersects with, and likely eventually hijacks, the main political storyline - and our characters' relationships. Does Delita know about the nature of the stones? Did he know about Cuchulainn? Is he part of some nefarious plot to return a demonic master to this earth?
We'll find out eventually.
For now, the battle is won - and we transition directly, not to Ramza and the others reflecting on what the hell just happened, but on a cutscene far away.
…
But before that we have to rewind.
Because fuck me I just looked up a YouTube walkthrough to be sure that I hadn't missed optional dialogue due to Ramza being asleep when Cuchulainn went down, and I didn't at that time, but it turns out there is, in fact, a whole bit of dialogue between the two of them mid-fight that I missed because, I guess, the game thought it would be so fucking clever to put in critical missable dialogue in a fight with an enemy that abuses the Sleep status?
Playthrough by SteelSeven Playthroughs on YouTube.
Ramza: "This is auracite's sacred power? How can power so vile banish villainy? Surely the cardinal was no greater evil than this! "
Cuchulainn: "Behold Lucavi pow'r made manifest! Whose might o'er all Creation once held sway."
Ramza: "The power of the Lucavi? I see only a devil before me! What have you done with the cardinal?"
Cuchulainn: "What nonsense this? I am the man himself! Or rather he who once was Delacroix! The Stone, the auracite, such pow'rs grant, to rise above Man's frailty - a god. A god who brooks no meddling of fools! Die, and know suff'ring!"
Why is this missable dialogue.
Okay so I guess this is Cardinal Delacroix, only transformed so profoundly that not only his body and power, but his mindset, even his speech mannerisms have changed. Either that, or the Lucavi is lying to deceive us - but as he intends to kill us all, what would be the point? My guess is that this is sort of a 'your brain on evil' kind of deal. Delacroix was never good but he wasn't quite this openly sadistic.
A god indeed. We are moving in the classic traditions of JRPG churches, it seems.
Alright.
Delita has reached Duke Goltanna's castle, and now appears in his court, in front of him and his advisors, having delivered Ovelia. Goltanna's wording strongly suggests that he doesn't know who Delita is, which makes sense, given that he seems to be delivering Ovelia as part of a layered plan that seeks to use Goltanna somehow, rather than merely siding with him - he's doing all this with deeper designs than he lets on.
Duke Goltanna: "My advisors tell me you are the one who rescued Princess Ovelia. I would have you tell me more."
Delita: "I am Delita Heiral, a Blackram lieutenant in the service of His Excellency the Baron Grimms. His Excellency dispatched me to rescue the princess. And so I did, disguised as your own - a sheep in Lion's clothing. Now I have returned."
Chancellor Glevanne: "Heiral, you say? That is a name I've not heard before."
Duke Goltanna: "I thought Baron Grimms and his Blackrams felled in battle against the Eye a fortnight past."
Delita: "Indeed. That dark news spurred me to return with all the greater haste."
Duke Goltanna: "How fares the princess?"
Bishop Canne-Beurich: "She is weary yet from her long journey. She sleeps as if among the dead."
Count Cidolfus Orlandeau: "Is it not true you brought a prisoner?"
Our first look at the Thunder God.
Delita: "It is. Bring the prisoner forth!"
[A Squire in red is pushed into the room, hands tied behind his back.]
Delita: "Let us hear the reason for your attempt on the princess."
Prisoner: "'Twas to stain Duke Goltanna's name, and keep him from Lesalia. We thought to deny him the regent's seat."
Delita: "Who gave you the order? Duke Larg?"
Prisoner: "No… A close adviser of Duke Goltanna's seeking to curry Duke Larg's favor."
Chancellor Glevanne: "Madness! None among us would fain betray our duke! Silence this man, he knows not of what he speaks!"
Pictured: A man with about five seconds left to live.
Duke Goltanna: "I would hear it nonetheless."
Delita: "Who was it?"
Prisoner: "..."
Delita: "Name the one who gave the order!"
Prisoner: "I'd have your protection?"
Delita: "On my honor as a knight. Speak!"
Prisoner: "'Twas the man who stands before me. Chancellor Glevanne."
Chancellor Glevanne: "What!? How dare you! I do not even know you, knave!"
Delita: "Who put you to it? The queen?"
Chancellor Glevanne: "Stop this mummer's farce. I've naught to do with this!"
Delita: "To betray your liege lord is an unpardonable crime, Chancellor."
[Delita draws his sword; other advisors either step back, look on, or in Cid's case puts his hand to his own sword, ready to draw.]
Chancellor Glevanne: "It was not I! I know naught of it!"
[He turns around to flee; Delita strikes him down.]
Delita: [He turns around to face Duke Goltanna and kneels.] "Forgive me if I presume overmuch, Your Grace, but now is not the time for bandied words. The Order of the Southern Sky must march on Lesalia at once, and you with it! Give your enemies but a moment to collect themselves, and they will pin the chancellor's sedition on his lord. Your Grace must strike before they are given the chance! Deny the prince's claim, and set the princess on the throne!"
[Fade to black.]
…
Okay, this is a lot to unpack.
Baron Grimms, being a low-ranking noble who died with most of his men in some battle against the Order of the Ebon Eye briefly mentioned a few updates back, makes a perfect lord for Delita to claim allegiance to, because there's no one alive to contradict him. We saw Delita and Ovelia during their run from Lionel - obviously they weren't dragging a prisoner with them. Whoever this guy in red is, he's either some random criminal Delita pulled off the street and gave a script to, or a member of the Delita/Folmarv/Formerly Delacroix conspiracy who is fully in on it.
Earlier we talked about how Delita said bringing Ovelia to Goltanna would doom her because Goltanna would immediately sell her to save his own head. But here, Delita has created the perfect excuse to avoid that fate: It wasn't Goltanna who gave the order to abduct the princess, it was his treacherous Chancellor, Duke Goltanna is innocent and in fact the princess's savior, the treacherous Chancellor is dead (struck down on the spot before he had a chance to defend himself), and Goltanna is now given both a claimant to the throne to rival Prince Orinus's claim and a reason to blame the princess's abduction on the treacherous schemes of Duke Larg and the Queen.
It's even possible that Chancellor Glevanne did conspire with Larg and the queen - that his men were the ones found dead near Orbonne Monastery after Delita and Folmarv intercepted their little ploy. We'll probably never know - the man was too severely outmaneuvered either way.
Duke Goltanna may or may not realize that he's being played. But if he does, then he's being played in a way that perfectly aligns with his interests and desires, so he has no reason not to go along with it.
Delita just gave him the perfect reason to march on the Capital and kickstart the War of the Lions.
Oh hell yeah chocobo cavalry.
Narrator: "Following his sack of the royal capital of Lesalia, Duke Goltanna banished Queen Louveria to Besselat for her hand in the conspiracy and crowned Princess Ovelia queen. But Duke Larg, insisting that Prince Orinus was the true and rightful heir, at once crowned the child-prince and declared himself regent. Moving then to free the queen, Duke Larg dispatched the Order of the Northern Sky to Besselat in the name of the new-crowned king. Dule Goltanna in turn set the Southern Sky to march in Ovelia's name. The curtain had risen on what history would one day record as the War of the Lions."
…
Notably this doesn't match with what we're told in the PSX intro? That one said, "The Queen's elder brother Larg was designated as guardian but, fearing an oppressive reign from the Queen, the parliament ousted the potential prince, appointing instead the King's cousin, Prince Goltana, as the guardian." Which is not quite what's going on here - Goltanna is not the regent, instead he has declared Orinus illegitimate, crowned Ovelia as queen, and is now acting as her faithful general affirming her claim to the throne against Larg, who is currently regent claiming Orinus as the legitimate king. It's a lot messier!
The save screen prompt technically closes Chapter 2, but let's peek ahead at the introduction of the next chapter, which sets the terms of the new status quo (if it can be called that, considering its instability) before we regain control of our characters.
Pictured from top to bottom: Marquis Elmdore de Limberry, the Baron of Bolmina, Count Cidolfus Orlandeau, Viscount Blanche.
We find ourselves in Duke Goltanna's… Office? Briefing room? Not sure what to call it, in Fort Besselat, Goltanna's stronghold.
Interestingly, this update is our first update actually seeing Goltanna after hearing so much about him prior. We're also introduced to his cast of close advisors; only four of them, but this is a noticeable departure from Larg (whom we've only ever met once in Dycedarg's company) or Dycedarg himself (who is only conspiring with one other person or at most two, the latter of whom died in that scene). It seems like Goltanna might be more reliant on his personal entourage, which could be a good or bad sign for him - it could mean he has more men he really trusts, or it could mean he's indecisive and dependent on others' counsel.
The Baron of Bolmina: "This past evenfall, the count stood at twenty thousand - forty, if both sides be counted. Alone, we've sustained, ah, two hundred thousand wounded, as well."
Marquis Elmdore de Limberry [Remember him? We rescued him in chapter 1.]: "The number of casualties does not concern me. Nor does the depletion of our stores - these were to be expected. No, it is this drought that threatens us. The markets are empty and tax collections fall short. With prices as they are, we can lay in supplies for another half year, at best."
Viscount Blanche: "Duke Larg must surely face like difficulties. It rained unceasingly in Gallionne this season. The grain rotted in the fields before it could be harvested."
Count Cidolfus Orlandeau: "The real trouble lies in war's wake. There is no work. Whole villages have been displaced. Orran tells me over one hundred thousand have already fled to Lesalia, and more pour by the day."
Viscount Blanche: "Ha! I see no trouble in this! Let Larg struggle to feed the mewling maids and his soldiers both!"
Count Cidolfus Orlandeau: "It is no laughing matter! Should the conflict spread, we may find ourselves no better off. Think you Zeltennia proof against such fate? I assure you, we are not! Has not the time come to chart a course for peace?"
Duke Goltanna: "Your fears are well founded. But we cannot yet end this war. We shall treble the rate of taxe, and keep a close watch on those who hope to profiteer in these trying times. As for those seeking refuge outside the castle walls, we shall tighten our patrols at the Limberry border to see they are turned back."
Classic nobility at war move - the population is starving? There is a mass exodus of refugees? No one can even work the fields anymore? Well, no other option than to raise more taxes. Of course it's completely realistic - this is simply the logic of war; as a medieval or early modern monarch at war your alternatives to 'just squeeze the peasantry like blood from a stone' are 'do with less money and lose the war' or 'sue for peace.' It's not like you can sustain the war effort without money from somewhere.
Which leads to another point - there's a classic fictional trope, especially in sci-fi/fantasy/anime but also in other media, where a character presents a reasonable rundown of exactly why the course of action ordered by their boss is a bad idea and why the reasonable (and possibly moral) thing to do would be to back down, scale down their efforts, try to find a peaceful exit from the conflict, etc, and the rest of their faction derides them as a weakling or a coward for it, despite it being extremely obvious that they are the most competent of the lot. That's the beat that plays out next, where Cidolfus Orlandeau tries to lay out exactly how dire the resource situation is, how the peasantry starving would collapse the entire social order of the kingdom, and how they totally lack the strong morale and resolve among the troops that they had during the Fifty Years War (which was resistance to an invasion of their home, rather than a civil war over competing noble claims), and Goltanna calls him a coward and his advisors mock his lofty title of 'Thunder God' as undeserved.
Duke Goltanna: "Show leniency now, and they will only strike the harder. This fight is not only for ourselves, but for our people in equal measure. The Crown cumbers them with its every act. We fight to free them from such tyrannies."
Viscount Blanche: "His Grace has the right of it. Besides, why lay down the sword with victory so near? Your title is ill earned, 'Thunder God' Cid. Your gentle words would sooner stir a breeze."
Count Cidolfus Orlandeau: "Is victory so near? My ears are deaf to its approach. What see you in our plight that portends victory? Or have you forsworn the use of your eyes?"
It's very obvious in this scene that Goltanna and most of his advisors are using self-serving and circular logic to justify what they want to do anyway. The enemy is starving and crumbling under the mass of refugees, so clearly they are about to collapse any second now, but also they're so dangerous and perfidious that we have to fight them to our last peasant because they would just destroy us immediately, but also starvation and drought and having no money doesn't matter because our cause is righteous and our resolve is strong. We fight to free the people from tyranny but also we need to triple the tax burden to sustain the war effort. Our people are fleeing Zeltennia to Gallionne en masse but that is actually good because it means more refugees for them (don't ask why they fled our lands). It's all completely circuitous because the only thing that matters is that each argument somehow land at "and therefore it's correct for Goltanna to continue the war no matter what." It's obvious that Cidolfus is the only one with something approaching a clear vision here, which is why his points have to be dismissed. Blanche nearly goes to blows over Cid's last remark and Goltanna cuts them off, then curtly tells Cid that he disappoints him.
Duke Goltanna: "I will say this but once. Any man who cares not for the course I've chosen had best remove himself now. I will brook no further doubt, Orlandeau!"
Count Cidolfus Orlandeau: "..."
[Cue chapter title card.]
Ramza's voice over: "Delita once told me he was swimming against some unseen current. If this current rushed towards war, and the world with it, what hope do I have to fight it? I made for Lesalia to tell my lord brother that someone dictated this war from the shadows - and to test my legs against the current."
And this marks the beginning of Chapter 3 proper. We are returned to the map, with our party in Dorter, and new nodes highlighted heading towards the heart of the country - our next two nodes are the Mining Town of Gollund and the Royal City of Lesalia.
We entered Lionel Castle on 24 Capricorn, and it's now 4 Taurus. From a quick look at Ivalice's calendar, that means 4 months have passed - enough for the first stage of the war to kick off in earnest, though the country likely wouldn't be facing famine yet if it were not for the devastating consequences of the Fifty Years War still lingering. The Rumors tab at the tavern informs us that it's been three months since the Battle of Offrovia, the first full-scale engagement between the two Lions' armies, which makes this about a month to gather their forces and make their first maneuvers, which makes sense. Chancellor Glevanne was successfully blamed as the man behind Ovelia's abduction, on Louveria's orders, which the Queen fervently denies; Delita is making his first recorded mark in history as a Blackram lieutenant who heroically saved the princess, and is being given command of the surviving Blackrams as a result. Cardinal Delacroix's death was covered up as caused by 'malady', though there is rampant speculation he was assassinated, 'some even say slain by an otherworldly fiend,' an outlandish rumor not helped by 'the violent assault on Lionel Castle by a band of brigands on the eve of Delacroix's death.'
This is the beginning of the rewriting of history - Delita begins his journey as a little-known knight proving himself through heroic deeds and climbing the ranks of the military hierarchy, while Ramza's name appears nowhere, his actions in attempting to save the princess and slaying a demon prince turned into a brigand raid which coincidentally happened to take place while Delacroix was dying of sickness.
…
It struck me at weird at first that we got zero moment of in-character reflection with Ramza or discussion with his allies as to the next course of action, any moment of 'okay what the fuck was that demon thing, what do we do now, who all is involved in this conspiracy.' We don't, strictly speaking, need it, but it feels weird that we go from Cuchulainn's dying monologue to the world map with only Goltanna cutscenes in between.
But then I realized the game kind of doesn't have a choice. Previously, it was able to give us Ramza cutscenes by having him play off Guests currently tagging along with our party. But now both of those guests have become playable party members… Which means they can die, which means they can't fit into mandatory story content. So Ramza can't pause to have a chat with Agrius or Mustadio and ask them their take on things, even though Agrias just learned that Princess Ovelia decided to ally with the spooky conspiracy and clearly no longer seeks Agrias's protection, and even though Mustadio is our resident Ancient World Stuff Knower and would likely have some kind of opinion on what Delacroix just pulled with the Zodiac Stone.
It's a real shame their perspectives are completely lost with the swap to full time party member and that we get no establishing story beat for Ramza leading to this next segment.
And that, I think… Will do it for us today. Only one battle, but the plot developments have been massive. War has finally kicked off, and in the shadow, a conspiracy linked with the demonic overlords of legend seeking to return to the world. Lest there be any mistake, Cardinal Delacroix's Chronicle tab has updated to reflect his demise, specifying: "The cardinal fused with Cuchulainn - one of the Lucavi demons of legend - and was searching for the Zodiac Stones as part of some vile plot," clarifying the nature of his transformation and the name of our enemy.
A mystical conspiracy is afoot. This could be good or bad, considering that what I've most enjoyed about Final Fantasy Tactics so far is its grounded sense of political realism and conflict between idealism and practicality and duty against personal beliefs. We will have to see where it goes from there.
Thank you for reading.
Next Time: To the Royal City of Lesalia!
The Story So Far: Ramza, scion of the noble House Beoulve, took up the life of a wandering mercenary without allegiance after being betrayed by his own kin. He was roused from this torpor by his chance meeting with his childhood friend Delita and Princess Ovelia, whom he now seeks to save from the daggers of assassins. He now rushes to Lionel Castle to save Ovelia, but unbeknownst to him, Delita has already stolen the Princess away; all that awaits Ramza is a meeting with His Eminence, Cardinal Delacroix…
The Delita fight/cutscene is directly followed by a prompt to save the game, which itself is followed by access to our party roster menu so that we can tweak jobs, abilities, and equipment, clear indication that we're in on for one hell of a fight ahead. I elect to leave Hadrian at home because, now that we've had the gate ceiling trick, I'm not confident Jump will work if our next battle is indoors, as seems likely considering we're heading into Lionel Castle.
The name of our next location is Lionel Castle Oratory. Will the Cardinal speechify at us?
Cardinal Delacroix: "I see Gaffgarion's sword was no match for his words. Then again, perhaps the fault lies with his adversary. Beoulve blood is not given to spill easily. Even when thinned with that of a courtesan, it would seem.
[Delacroix descends from the pulpit to stand at the stairs.]
Cardinal Delacroix: "But enough is enough. Your intrusions overstay their welcome. Leave the auracite, and then leave Lionel. A generous offer, and my last."
Ramza: "Where is Lady Ovelia?"
Cardinal Delacroix: "You mean to free her? What then? You've turned your back on your house. A man cannot prosecute a war alone. Forget this bootless struggle. Think you mere *will* enough to see you victorious? Even will needs force, and you have none."
It's always with the rationales - 'you've left your house,' 'you can't win a war alone,' 'you need more soldiers,' 'you can't keep the princess safe', all to avoid answering the straightforward question "It's bad to abduct, use and kill people for my political gain."
Ramza: "Tell me where the princess is!"
Cardinal Delacroix: "Gone to Zeltennia. Her Highness has chosen to accept our hand in aid over yours."
Ramza: "You lie!"
Cardinal Delacroix: "Her Highness has taken her first step toward the throne. But she will need a steady hand to guide her, and yours falters. Who better, then, than us to stand at her side? She saw this - why not you? There's no reason you should not join us as well. The thought of besting your brothers holds no allure? We care no less for this world's fate than you. Together we can change Ivalice for the better."
Ramza: "I have no wish to change the world. But nor can I stand by while men suffer and die on the whim of some select few. Do you truly believe you can change the world? Not even I am so naive as that."
Cardinal Delacroix: "That Stone you hold can twist the very weave of nature, to say nothing of the world. Yet I fear my words are wasted on you. Actions speak louder, yes?"
Hrm.
Okay I have a couple of questions here.
First off: I was initially confused as to Delacroix saying he had Ovelia sent to Zeltennia (and Delita also saying so earlier during their cutscene). Zeltannia is Goltanna's Duchy, and we've been told explicitly that if Goltanna got his hands on Ovelia, he would immediately hand her over to Larg to save his own head (as he is currently widely believed to have had Ovelia abducted/assassinated, which could result in his disgrace and even death), which would result in Ovelia dying anyway. So why send her there? This will eventually become clearer, but it's initially a bit of a swerve.
More importantly…
Why is Ramza even doing this?
His goal was to save Princess Ovelia from certain death at the hands of the Dukes. But - assuming Delacroix isn't lying - Ovelia has now decided to accept Delacroix's "aid" and now has new allies. Ramza… Can no longer save her from Delacroix because there is no need to save her. The Cardinal is now actively protecting her to further his own ends. Killing Delacroix here will not be any help. What reason does Ramza have to fight now?
What was previously a very practical conflict about saving one specific person has now turned into a much more abstract battle of ideas, and it's kind of an awkward fit, because Ramza previously has pointedly not been ideological so far - his motivation has previously been of the 'save the person in front of me' kind, it's weird that he has suddenly turned into a 'better things aren't possible, you fool, you idiot, you absolute buffoon' status quo fighter.
Sure, Delacroix is a treacherous liar and hypocrite, his way of doing things is likely to bring about great harm, and he intends to manipulate Ovelia as a figurehead to advance his secret faction's agenda - all valid reasons to object to him getting any kind of power! But that's not what Ramza is saying, what he's saying is "I have no wish to change the world" and "Even I am not so naive as to think I can change the world." Really? You don't? Where does this passivity come from? Has this world not wronged you enough, Ramza?
Perhaps it's just the PTSD talking. The fear of failure, of letting down people again, of causing more tragedy, that has Ramza refusing to acknowledge his own potential to bring about change.
Maybe if we let this discussion play out, we would find out that he can't find a reason to murder the good Cardinal in his own home when Ovelia isn't even there anymore and he'd just… Leave.
So it's fortunate Delacroix is going to force his hand.
Now.
We know that in this setting, even older men can be powerful fighters. We know magic is a potent weapon, and one that is directly linked to one's Faith. We know Delacroix was not above murdering Ludovich Baert in cold blood. So at this point, my expectations are set: Delacroix will summon his men into the oratory, and we'll start another close quarter battle, surrounded, against a smattering of knightly classes and mages, with Delacroix as a more powerful than usual mage of some kind.
Well. I was wrong.
The Cardinal produces the Zodiac Stone…
Oh, Final Fantasy.
What the fuck is that.
Jesus Christ. This is giving me the same vibes as the Darmine Doggy Door sketch from I Think You Should Leave. "That's gonna kill me! That's real! That lives with us here on Earth!" What a horrible, horrible thing.
Wait, speaking of Jesus Christ. Aren't the Auracites supposed to be associated with the Zodiac Braves? Aren't they supposed to summon/hold the power of the ancient heroes who fought with Ajora? Why the fuck is it turning you into A HIDEOUS MASS OF STITCHED GREY FLESH. Guess the legends weren't quite right!! You actually use the auracite to turn into a demon from hell!? Oh and he's called Cuchulainn the Impure, which on the one hand is entirely random but on the other hand kinda kicks ass, not gonna lie.
Cuchulainn: "You take no pains to hide your wonderment. How I shall delight to watch you die. Each excruciating ecstasy!"
[OBJECTIVE: DEFEAT CUCHULAINN!]
Well, the good news is, he can talk. The bad news is, he's not just ugly, he's also plain fucking evil.
Great news, gang: Cuchulainn's HP, MP, and CT are all hidden. I'm also pretty sure he's immune to status effects. If this is a forecast of how every solo monster boss is going to be in the game going forward, that's going to be very annoying.
Cuchulainn goes first, and his opening move is 'Nightmare.'
Final Fantasy Tactics released in 1997. Fullmetal Alchemist began serialization in 2001. I suspect one may have influenced the other here.
Cuchulainn opens his chest like a horrible maw filled with teeth, targeting characters in a cross AoE in which he inflicts either Sleep, or Doom. In this case, Mustadio, Gillian, and Hester are all put to Sleep, leaving only Ramza and Agrias awake and able to act. Then Cuchulainn - unbefitting of his mythological inspiration - withdraws to the back of the oratory, where I need to have my two remaining guys chase him.
Binding Darkness is dealing terribly low damage, only 36 HP, and Cuchulainn has actually withdrawn so far that Agrias - whose movement range is very short, and who could really use some levels in Thief for Move+2 - can't actually get within Sword Skill range. On his next turn, Cuchulainn moves back closer to the group, using Nightmare on my sleeping units again.
Nightmare can hit pretty much the entire room from a central position.
This time, Hester is afflicted with Doom. I haven't talked about Doom much because it's only rarely come up; as a status effect, Doom puts a timer on a character's head, the same as a KO'd character's dying counter. After three turns, they're KO. Like other buffs and debuffs, this is tied to a character's CT gauge; characters with very high Speed will die quicker, and a character who is Sleeping will not accrue Doom turns. This will be relevant.
For now, Cuchulainn moving back in allows Ramza and Agrias to gang up on him with Cleansing Strike and Spirit Blade, with Cleansing Strike doing considerably more damage - could it be that Cuchulainn is weak to Holy?
Cuchulainn keeps moving around the room casting Nightmare, stacking Doom on Gillian and Ramza next. The picture looks like this:
Ramza is on a timer, and when he goes down no one can revive him until the sleepers are awake. Hester and Gillian are in a suspended state, their Doom counter won't move until they wake up. So far, it seems like Cu is using a simple tactic, just spamming Nightmare to disable most of my team and run the Doom counter on the ones that are active. That's an interesting tactic, but it can't be too difficult to deal with…
Until he pulls out Bioga.
Bioga's AoE is so wide it hits essentially everyone, Ramza being the only one to escape it, for massive damage. This also causes everyone to wake up at once, and their Doom counters to start ticking. No worries, right? I'll just have everyone corner the big guy and take turns kicking his shins until it goes down while Gillian uses Cura to keep everyone topped up.
Cu slips through the cracks and Biogas the clumped-together party, instantly taking out Agrias, Gillian and Mustadio and leaving me with only Ramza and Hester surviving. On the next turn, their Doom counters tick down, and it's Game Over.
I… don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that.
This is our first fight with what - by contrast with standard Monsters - I'm going to call a 'demonic' boss. Cuchulainn's HP count is enormous, able to tank at least 300 damage, all his values are hidden from us, he uses non-standard moves whose effects we have to discover mid-fight, and his overall battle plan is completely unique and requires reassessing as a whole new kind of threat.
He's also disturbing as fuck.
What did Cardinal Delacroix do to himself? Is he even still in there, inside that thing? Delacroix was an asshole, but "I will take delight in watching each of your excruciating deaths" doesn't sound like something he'd say. Fuck, sorry, each excruciating ecstasy.
*pause*
*slow blinking*
Wait, I was about to make a joke about "this guy is a fucking Cenobite" and post a picture of Pinhead, the most famous of the Hellraiser entities.
But.
I've spoilered the following picture to avoid blasting my unfortunate readership with Hellraiser costumes - heavily BDSM body horror monsters below:
That guy on the right of the picture? His name is (apologies) 'Butterball,' and his two defining features are being fat with multiple chins, and having a vertical gash in his chest with stitches/hooks digging into its sides - and he's often depicted with his two hands around this gash, as if he were about to pull it open it like a mouth.
So, uh, yeah. I'm pretty sure Cuchulainn, the Impure, is directly inspired by Butterball the Cenobite. What was it Pinhead said in the movie?
"Explorers, in the further regions of experience. Demons to some, angels to others." "The Cenobites gave me an experience beyond limits. Pain and pleasure, indivisible." That sure sounds something like "Each excruciating ecstasy"!
I'm saying this because I think this may be more than just a visual reference. The Zodiac Stones were supposed to be associated with the Zodiac Braves, with essentially saints/apostles of the setting's main religion, and be some means of calling back to their legacy or summoning them? And here is a Cardinal of the Church of Glabados, one of the most powerful figures of the Ivalician faith, using one of these stones to turn himself into a terrifying demon that delights in agony. Was it by mistake or design? Could it be that the saints and devils of the Church of Glabados were always one and the same? That the Zodiac Braves and the Lucavi were somehow conflated by history, mistaken one for the other, or two sides of the same coin? "Demons to some, angels to others." Food for thought.
For now, we have to kill him.
I'm pretty sure the shops back in town sold items that could protect from Sleep, and maybe even from Doom. Unfortunately, I had not expected to be locked into three battles in a row, so I didn't think to stock up on those in case I needed them later, figuring I could always just backtrack if needed. Now I'm stuck - if I want to buy those items I will need to replay both the Gaffgarion and Delita battles and all their cutscenes.
So let's just brute force our way through.
Unfortunately Esuna is too expensive for Gillian to purchase at this stage.
The fight starts much the same - unfortunately my deployment area is too small to easily spread out my units and avoid Nightmare's AoE. Cuchulainn opens by putting Mustadio and Gillian in Sleep and inflicting Doom on Hester.
As a Ninja, Hester has the ability to Throw items. Like Chemist, she has to unlock each throwable item individually - Knives, Swords, Flails, Katanas, etc. These mostly just seem like a way to dispose of excess inventory and I'm not really interested in digging deep into them. The two unique throwable are more interesting: Shurikens are cheap, low-damage Throw options that we can buy in bulk by the dozen. Bombs deal elemental damage (they only target one tile unfortunately, they're not AoE grenades). But they deal a lot more damage than I thought; a single lightning or ice bomb deals 80 damage to Cuchulainn, at range. This is higher than either Mustadio and Gillian's gun attacks, or Agrias's sword skill. Last time Hester effectively sat out the fight, but this time she had the 'luck' of taking Doom rather than Sleep from Cu's opening Nightmare, so she can throw in a few solid projectiles before death catches up to her.
Ramza unfortunately drew the short straw in this fight. Whether it's his physical attacks or his Iaido moves, none do more than half the damage Agrias is capable of inflicting with Cleansing Strike.
Hester falls, another Nightmare puts Ramza to sleep, leaving Agrias as the only active battlefield unit - and unfortunately, Cu also Doomed her along the way.
Everyone but Ramza has Doom, Hester is already KO and one turn away from permadeath, and Agrias is my only active unit. You can see how this fight hits different - the particular kind of stress it creates is entirely unique to it, no other enemy so far has been able to lock us down this thoroughly. 'How does the game deal with the action economy issue of having one big boss unit against five playable units taking turns every round'? I asked myself earlier. One answer was the Gaffgarion answer, locking Ramza into a 1v1 while his squad fights off against NPCs (which was, itself, an illusion we could break through). This is another answer: Mass disabling attacks that leave most of our party powerless and force us to do with very few units active at a time..
Cuchulainn attempts to use Biora against Agrias and Ramza. Amazingly, it whiffs. Then Gillian's Sleep counter runs out, and she wakes up. She is now Doomed - only three turns to act. But that barely matters. All that does is that she can now move up and Raise Hester one turn from her death counter running out.
Cuchulainn immediately casts Bioga for massive damage, taking down Hester (again) and Agrias (ouch). Mustadio and Gillian's Doom counters are nearly out. Ramza is asleep. It doesn't matter - the point here was to avoid Hester's counter ticking down to 0, leading to her permadeath and scraping the run.
Now remember - CT gauges continue to count up while a character is KO.
Gillian goes again, raises Hester a second time, and she goes immediately, stabbing the demon to death.
Cuchulainn, the Impure: "How strange that I, Undying, here should die. A death come early, ere my master could return…"
With a crackling of red lightning, Cuchulainn vanishes, leaving behind his Zodiac Stone.
…
So that wasn't Cardinal Delacroix, right? 'I, Undying,' 'Before my master could return'... I get the strong feeling that in attempting to summoning or transforming himself into Cuchulainn, Delacroix was subsumed into him. That Cuchulainn is an ancient entity of myth, a being from the shadow realm of the Lucavi, who had bided his time until now, whose designs are for the return of some kind of master…?
…
I can't see further ahead than I've played, but this seems very likely to be Final Fantasy Tactics' Jenova moment. The equivalent to when FF7's story about corporate greed and destructive technology and the ethics of ecoterrorism was hijacked by a monster from a nightmare who opened our characters' cells and carved a path of death through Shinra HQ. The politics of Ivalice are unfolding, the opening moves of the War of the Lions are being played out by Larg, Goltanna and the Church, a secret faction is making moves towards some unseen goals…
…and also Cardinals are turning into motherfucking demons from legends who delight in suffering for suffering's sake and await the return of their 'master,' probably the demon king of myth.
Final Fantasy Tactics is truly a Final Fantasy game.
It remains to be seen how this 'supernatural evil from legend' plot intersects with, and likely eventually hijacks, the main political storyline - and our characters' relationships. Does Delita know about the nature of the stones? Did he know about Cuchulainn? Is he part of some nefarious plot to return a demonic master to this earth?
We'll find out eventually.
For now, the battle is won - and we transition directly, not to Ramza and the others reflecting on what the hell just happened, but on a cutscene far away.
…
But before that we have to rewind.
Because fuck me I just looked up a YouTube walkthrough to be sure that I hadn't missed optional dialogue due to Ramza being asleep when Cuchulainn went down, and I didn't at that time, but it turns out there is, in fact, a whole bit of dialogue between the two of them mid-fight that I missed because, I guess, the game thought it would be so fucking clever to put in critical missable dialogue in a fight with an enemy that abuses the Sleep status?
Playthrough by SteelSeven Playthroughs on YouTube.
Ramza: "This is auracite's sacred power? How can power so vile banish villainy? Surely the cardinal was no greater evil than this! "
Cuchulainn: "Behold Lucavi pow'r made manifest! Whose might o'er all Creation once held sway."
Ramza: "The power of the Lucavi? I see only a devil before me! What have you done with the cardinal?"
Cuchulainn: "What nonsense this? I am the man himself! Or rather he who once was Delacroix! The Stone, the auracite, such pow'rs grant, to rise above Man's frailty - a god. A god who brooks no meddling of fools! Die, and know suff'ring!"
Why is this missable dialogue.
Okay so I guess this is Cardinal Delacroix, only transformed so profoundly that not only his body and power, but his mindset, even his speech mannerisms have changed. Either that, or the Lucavi is lying to deceive us - but as he intends to kill us all, what would be the point? My guess is that this is sort of a 'your brain on evil' kind of deal. Delacroix was never good but he wasn't quite this openly sadistic.
A god indeed. We are moving in the classic traditions of JRPG churches, it seems.
Alright.
Delita has reached Duke Goltanna's castle, and now appears in his court, in front of him and his advisors, having delivered Ovelia. Goltanna's wording strongly suggests that he doesn't know who Delita is, which makes sense, given that he seems to be delivering Ovelia as part of a layered plan that seeks to use Goltanna somehow, rather than merely siding with him - he's doing all this with deeper designs than he lets on.
Duke Goltanna: "My advisors tell me you are the one who rescued Princess Ovelia. I would have you tell me more."
Delita: "I am Delita Heiral, a Blackram lieutenant in the service of His Excellency the Baron Grimms. His Excellency dispatched me to rescue the princess. And so I did, disguised as your own - a sheep in Lion's clothing. Now I have returned."
Chancellor Glevanne: "Heiral, you say? That is a name I've not heard before."
Duke Goltanna: "I thought Baron Grimms and his Blackrams felled in battle against the Eye a fortnight past."
Delita: "Indeed. That dark news spurred me to return with all the greater haste."
Duke Goltanna: "How fares the princess?"
Bishop Canne-Beurich: "She is weary yet from her long journey. She sleeps as if among the dead."
Count Cidolfus Orlandeau: "Is it not true you brought a prisoner?"
Our first look at the Thunder God.
Delita: "It is. Bring the prisoner forth!"
[A Squire in red is pushed into the room, hands tied behind his back.]
Delita: "Let us hear the reason for your attempt on the princess."
Prisoner: "'Twas to stain Duke Goltanna's name, and keep him from Lesalia. We thought to deny him the regent's seat."
Delita: "Who gave you the order? Duke Larg?"
Prisoner: "No… A close adviser of Duke Goltanna's seeking to curry Duke Larg's favor."
Chancellor Glevanne: "Madness! None among us would fain betray our duke! Silence this man, he knows not of what he speaks!"
Pictured: A man with about five seconds left to live.
Duke Goltanna: "I would hear it nonetheless."
Delita: "Who was it?"
Prisoner: "..."
Delita: "Name the one who gave the order!"
Prisoner: "I'd have your protection?"
Delita: "On my honor as a knight. Speak!"
Prisoner: "'Twas the man who stands before me. Chancellor Glevanne."
Chancellor Glevanne: "What!? How dare you! I do not even know you, knave!"
Delita: "Who put you to it? The queen?"
Chancellor Glevanne: "Stop this mummer's farce. I've naught to do with this!"
Delita: "To betray your liege lord is an unpardonable crime, Chancellor."
[Delita draws his sword; other advisors either step back, look on, or in Cid's case puts his hand to his own sword, ready to draw.]
Chancellor Glevanne: "It was not I! I know naught of it!"
[He turns around to flee; Delita strikes him down.]
Delita: [He turns around to face Duke Goltanna and kneels.] "Forgive me if I presume overmuch, Your Grace, but now is not the time for bandied words. The Order of the Southern Sky must march on Lesalia at once, and you with it! Give your enemies but a moment to collect themselves, and they will pin the chancellor's sedition on his lord. Your Grace must strike before they are given the chance! Deny the prince's claim, and set the princess on the throne!"
[Fade to black.]
…
Okay, this is a lot to unpack.
Baron Grimms, being a low-ranking noble who died with most of his men in some battle against the Order of the Ebon Eye briefly mentioned a few updates back, makes a perfect lord for Delita to claim allegiance to, because there's no one alive to contradict him. We saw Delita and Ovelia during their run from Lionel - obviously they weren't dragging a prisoner with them. Whoever this guy in red is, he's either some random criminal Delita pulled off the street and gave a script to, or a member of the Delita/Folmarv/Formerly Delacroix conspiracy who is fully in on it.
Earlier we talked about how Delita said bringing Ovelia to Goltanna would doom her because Goltanna would immediately sell her to save his own head. But here, Delita has created the perfect excuse to avoid that fate: It wasn't Goltanna who gave the order to abduct the princess, it was his treacherous Chancellor, Duke Goltanna is innocent and in fact the princess's savior, the treacherous Chancellor is dead (struck down on the spot before he had a chance to defend himself), and Goltanna is now given both a claimant to the throne to rival Prince Orinus's claim and a reason to blame the princess's abduction on the treacherous schemes of Duke Larg and the Queen.
It's even possible that Chancellor Glevanne did conspire with Larg and the queen - that his men were the ones found dead near Orbonne Monastery after Delita and Folmarv intercepted their little ploy. We'll probably never know - the man was too severely outmaneuvered either way.
Duke Goltanna may or may not realize that he's being played. But if he does, then he's being played in a way that perfectly aligns with his interests and desires, so he has no reason not to go along with it.
Delita just gave him the perfect reason to march on the Capital and kickstart the War of the Lions.
Oh hell yeah chocobo cavalry.
Narrator: "Following his sack of the royal capital of Lesalia, Duke Goltanna banished Queen Louveria to Besselat for her hand in the conspiracy and crowned Princess Ovelia queen. But Duke Larg, insisting that Prince Orinus was the true and rightful heir, at once crowned the child-prince and declared himself regent. Moving then to free the queen, Duke Larg dispatched the Order of the Northern Sky to Besselat in the name of the new-crowned king. Dule Goltanna in turn set the Southern Sky to march in Ovelia's name. The curtain had risen on what history would one day record as the War of the Lions."
…
Notably this doesn't match with what we're told in the PSX intro? That one said, "The Queen's elder brother Larg was designated as guardian but, fearing an oppressive reign from the Queen, the parliament ousted the potential prince, appointing instead the King's cousin, Prince Goltana, as the guardian." Which is not quite what's going on here - Goltanna is not the regent, instead he has declared Orinus illegitimate, crowned Ovelia as queen, and is now acting as her faithful general affirming her claim to the throne against Larg, who is currently regent claiming Orinus as the legitimate king. It's a lot messier!
The save screen prompt technically closes Chapter 2, but let's peek ahead at the introduction of the next chapter, which sets the terms of the new status quo (if it can be called that, considering its instability) before we regain control of our characters.
Pictured from top to bottom: Marquis Elmdore de Limberry, the Baron of Bolmina, Count Cidolfus Orlandeau, Viscount Blanche.
We find ourselves in Duke Goltanna's… Office? Briefing room? Not sure what to call it, in Fort Besselat, Goltanna's stronghold.
Interestingly, this update is our first update actually seeing Goltanna after hearing so much about him prior. We're also introduced to his cast of close advisors; only four of them, but this is a noticeable departure from Larg (whom we've only ever met once in Dycedarg's company) or Dycedarg himself (who is only conspiring with one other person or at most two, the latter of whom died in that scene). It seems like Goltanna might be more reliant on his personal entourage, which could be a good or bad sign for him - it could mean he has more men he really trusts, or it could mean he's indecisive and dependent on others' counsel.
The Baron of Bolmina: "This past evenfall, the count stood at twenty thousand - forty, if both sides be counted. Alone, we've sustained, ah, two hundred thousand wounded, as well."
Marquis Elmdore de Limberry [Remember him? We rescued him in chapter 1.]: "The number of casualties does not concern me. Nor does the depletion of our stores - these were to be expected. No, it is this drought that threatens us. The markets are empty and tax collections fall short. With prices as they are, we can lay in supplies for another half year, at best."
Viscount Blanche: "Duke Larg must surely face like difficulties. It rained unceasingly in Gallionne this season. The grain rotted in the fields before it could be harvested."
Count Cidolfus Orlandeau: "The real trouble lies in war's wake. There is no work. Whole villages have been displaced. Orran tells me over one hundred thousand have already fled to Lesalia, and more pour by the day."
Viscount Blanche: "Ha! I see no trouble in this! Let Larg struggle to feed the mewling maids and his soldiers both!"
Count Cidolfus Orlandeau: "It is no laughing matter! Should the conflict spread, we may find ourselves no better off. Think you Zeltennia proof against such fate? I assure you, we are not! Has not the time come to chart a course for peace?"
Duke Goltanna: "Your fears are well founded. But we cannot yet end this war. We shall treble the rate of taxe, and keep a close watch on those who hope to profiteer in these trying times. As for those seeking refuge outside the castle walls, we shall tighten our patrols at the Limberry border to see they are turned back."
Classic nobility at war move - the population is starving? There is a mass exodus of refugees? No one can even work the fields anymore? Well, no other option than to raise more taxes. Of course it's completely realistic - this is simply the logic of war; as a medieval or early modern monarch at war your alternatives to 'just squeeze the peasantry like blood from a stone' are 'do with less money and lose the war' or 'sue for peace.' It's not like you can sustain the war effort without money from somewhere.
Which leads to another point - there's a classic fictional trope, especially in sci-fi/fantasy/anime but also in other media, where a character presents a reasonable rundown of exactly why the course of action ordered by their boss is a bad idea and why the reasonable (and possibly moral) thing to do would be to back down, scale down their efforts, try to find a peaceful exit from the conflict, etc, and the rest of their faction derides them as a weakling or a coward for it, despite it being extremely obvious that they are the most competent of the lot. That's the beat that plays out next, where Cidolfus Orlandeau tries to lay out exactly how dire the resource situation is, how the peasantry starving would collapse the entire social order of the kingdom, and how they totally lack the strong morale and resolve among the troops that they had during the Fifty Years War (which was resistance to an invasion of their home, rather than a civil war over competing noble claims), and Goltanna calls him a coward and his advisors mock his lofty title of 'Thunder God' as undeserved.
Duke Goltanna: "Show leniency now, and they will only strike the harder. This fight is not only for ourselves, but for our people in equal measure. The Crown cumbers them with its every act. We fight to free them from such tyrannies."
Viscount Blanche: "His Grace has the right of it. Besides, why lay down the sword with victory so near? Your title is ill earned, 'Thunder God' Cid. Your gentle words would sooner stir a breeze."
Count Cidolfus Orlandeau: "Is victory so near? My ears are deaf to its approach. What see you in our plight that portends victory? Or have you forsworn the use of your eyes?"
It's very obvious in this scene that Goltanna and most of his advisors are using self-serving and circular logic to justify what they want to do anyway. The enemy is starving and crumbling under the mass of refugees, so clearly they are about to collapse any second now, but also they're so dangerous and perfidious that we have to fight them to our last peasant because they would just destroy us immediately, but also starvation and drought and having no money doesn't matter because our cause is righteous and our resolve is strong. We fight to free the people from tyranny but also we need to triple the tax burden to sustain the war effort. Our people are fleeing Zeltennia to Gallionne en masse but that is actually good because it means more refugees for them (don't ask why they fled our lands). It's all completely circuitous because the only thing that matters is that each argument somehow land at "and therefore it's correct for Goltanna to continue the war no matter what." It's obvious that Cidolfus is the only one with something approaching a clear vision here, which is why his points have to be dismissed. Blanche nearly goes to blows over Cid's last remark and Goltanna cuts them off, then curtly tells Cid that he disappoints him.
Duke Goltanna: "I will say this but once. Any man who cares not for the course I've chosen had best remove himself now. I will brook no further doubt, Orlandeau!"
Count Cidolfus Orlandeau: "..."
[Cue chapter title card.]
Ramza's voice over: "Delita once told me he was swimming against some unseen current. If this current rushed towards war, and the world with it, what hope do I have to fight it? I made for Lesalia to tell my lord brother that someone dictated this war from the shadows - and to test my legs against the current."
And this marks the beginning of Chapter 3 proper. We are returned to the map, with our party in Dorter, and new nodes highlighted heading towards the heart of the country - our next two nodes are the Mining Town of Gollund and the Royal City of Lesalia.
We entered Lionel Castle on 24 Capricorn, and it's now 4 Taurus. From a quick look at Ivalice's calendar, that means 4 months have passed - enough for the first stage of the war to kick off in earnest, though the country likely wouldn't be facing famine yet if it were not for the devastating consequences of the Fifty Years War still lingering. The Rumors tab at the tavern informs us that it's been three months since the Battle of Offrovia, the first full-scale engagement between the two Lions' armies, which makes this about a month to gather their forces and make their first maneuvers, which makes sense. Chancellor Glevanne was successfully blamed as the man behind Ovelia's abduction, on Louveria's orders, which the Queen fervently denies; Delita is making his first recorded mark in history as a Blackram lieutenant who heroically saved the princess, and is being given command of the surviving Blackrams as a result. Cardinal Delacroix's death was covered up as caused by 'malady', though there is rampant speculation he was assassinated, 'some even say slain by an otherworldly fiend,' an outlandish rumor not helped by 'the violent assault on Lionel Castle by a band of brigands on the eve of Delacroix's death.'
This is the beginning of the rewriting of history - Delita begins his journey as a little-known knight proving himself through heroic deeds and climbing the ranks of the military hierarchy, while Ramza's name appears nowhere, his actions in attempting to save the princess and slaying a demon prince turned into a brigand raid which coincidentally happened to take place while Delacroix was dying of sickness.
…
It struck me at weird at first that we got zero moment of in-character reflection with Ramza or discussion with his allies as to the next course of action, any moment of 'okay what the fuck was that demon thing, what do we do now, who all is involved in this conspiracy.' We don't, strictly speaking, need it, but it feels weird that we go from Cuchulainn's dying monologue to the world map with only Goltanna cutscenes in between.
But then I realized the game kind of doesn't have a choice. Previously, it was able to give us Ramza cutscenes by having him play off Guests currently tagging along with our party. But now both of those guests have become playable party members… Which means they can die, which means they can't fit into mandatory story content. So Ramza can't pause to have a chat with Agrius or Mustadio and ask them their take on things, even though Agrias just learned that Princess Ovelia decided to ally with the spooky conspiracy and clearly no longer seeks Agrias's protection, and even though Mustadio is our resident Ancient World Stuff Knower and would likely have some kind of opinion on what Delacroix just pulled with the Zodiac Stone.
It's a real shame their perspectives are completely lost with the swap to full time party member and that we get no establishing story beat for Ramza leading to this next segment.
And that, I think… Will do it for us today. Only one battle, but the plot developments have been massive. War has finally kicked off, and in the shadow, a conspiracy linked with the demonic overlords of legend seeking to return to the world. Lest there be any mistake, Cardinal Delacroix's Chronicle tab has updated to reflect his demise, specifying: "The cardinal fused with Cuchulainn - one of the Lucavi demons of legend - and was searching for the Zodiac Stones as part of some vile plot," clarifying the nature of his transformation and the name of our enemy.
A mystical conspiracy is afoot. This could be good or bad, considering that what I've most enjoyed about Final Fantasy Tactics so far is its grounded sense of political realism and conflict between idealism and practicality and duty against personal beliefs. We will have to see where it goes from there.
Thank you for reading.
Next Time: To the Royal City of Lesalia!
ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
This is why permadeath is cringe.
Like... I genuinely fail to see the point of allowing preset story characters like Mustadio and Agrias to die for real. Even with generics it seems so incredibly dubious when you know damn well every gamer from Tactics to Emblem just slams the reset button when they lose a unit forever because there's nothing to be gained from proceeding with the rest of the game permanently weakened, but that goes double for people who have been in cutscenes and still sometimes have in-battle dialogue where you would like to see them keep talking and interacting! Stop letting players kill off characters if it's a question between having things happen and Nothing!!!!
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FF is like that. Story beats about RL social ills ultimately just get buried under the cosmic antagonists, cause it's depressing. FFT is actually one of the better ones, in that the cosmic villains don't actually obliterate the rest of the plot beats.
In fact, correcting myself slightly it's square Enix that is like that, other series than FF have this trajectory.
In fact, correcting myself slightly it's square Enix that is like that, other series than FF have this trajectory.
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Raj
Master of Procrasination
- Location
- Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
First non-double update in quite awhile now, but man does it give us a lot to chew on with just how much is happening right now.
I do agree with Omni that it's a shame that we get no scene on Ramza reflecting on all that's happened or even coming to the decision that he needs to speak to his brother about all this.
I do personally like the start of seeing Delita's rise through history, and Ramza tale not really appearing at all/being sealed by the church as his first really notable action is to go against it, one could say it's the start of him becoming the Heretic he's known as after all.
I do agree with Omni that it's a shame that we get no scene on Ramza reflecting on all that's happened or even coming to the decision that he needs to speak to his brother about all this.
I do personally like the start of seeing Delita's rise through history, and Ramza tale not really appearing at all/being sealed by the church as his first really notable action is to go against it, one could say it's the start of him becoming the Heretic he's known as after all.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Now I can discuss the other half of the Ogre Battle connection: namely the Ogre Battle.
What precisely were the Twelve Apostles battling that required the god given power of the Zodiac Stones? The Ogres.
Ogres were demons from hell, invading the surface world through chaos gates. Defeated, they were banished from the world, the Chaos gates destroyed, save a handful that were heavily guarded by royalty.
Notably, in the game Ogre Battle, the Zodiac Stones do not have some dark twist to them. They work exactly as advertised, a gemstone that if given to the pure of heart (ie a high reputation character who has behaved chivalrous on the battlefield) greatly increase their stats. This is something new, and interacts with the Ogreverse in interesting ways for what it implies.
What precisely were the Twelve Apostles battling that required the god given power of the Zodiac Stones? The Ogres.
Ogres were demons from hell, invading the surface world through chaos gates. Defeated, they were banished from the world, the Chaos gates destroyed, save a handful that were heavily guarded by royalty.
Notably, in the game Ogre Battle, the Zodiac Stones do not have some dark twist to them. They work exactly as advertised, a gemstone that if given to the pure of heart (ie a high reputation character who has behaved chivalrous on the battlefield) greatly increase their stats. This is something new, and interacts with the Ogreverse in interesting ways for what it implies.
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
gotta get agrias and mustadio those special skills leveled so i can finally have them learn new jobs to add to their kitNot pictured: the months long detour to do all the errands.
Genuinely different perspective, permadeath altering the plot is actually good, and proper tactics game, it's just that no jrpg game company actually wants to invest the time it would take to have enough programmable dialog to have it be a effective type of optional content and they're nearly all too free with savegames for the players to see it. Sure you can simplify things by making immortal commander units and lots of good (even branching, like Derr Langrisser, one of the better branching j-tactics game) games do it, but it's not the only way, as seeeeveral baldurs gate type games did and modders followed the example of (games where ALL characters were optional, which implies that unique interactions with them either disappear or get replaced by more unique interactions from the characters you actually have, weird workarounds for bugs like Biff the Understudy aside).
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daniel_gudman
KING (in land of blind)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I interpreted this as Ramza shutting the conversation down instead of making an actual argument; he's dismissing everything the Cardinal is saying as sophistry.
Historian Arazlam is the Ivalice equivalent of Dr. Daniel Jackson from Stargate: this weird guy crashing into the academic historian conference raving about how aliens are totally real, and also evil.
I'm pretty sure the game isn't that evil with its mechanics, shutting down an entire class just by going "sorry indoors map get rekt". Even Geomancer has some of its abilities based on non-standard terrain like brick buildings or wood floors.
Honestly my guess is just that Ramza straight up doesn't believe Delacroix. Yeah sure he's going all "Ovelia's out of your reach, we're helping her, you should leave/join us" but this guy already backstabbed the group just recently, why is he supposed to believe it for even a moment? Beyond that though, it's just those pesky "morals" kicking in since it's pretty obvious that even if Delacroix is telling the truth, his group doesn't have Ovelia's best interests in mind.
Also a Fire Emblem Permadeath moment problem, you'd think having Agrias here would cause her to comment on "bitch please you tried to kill me and kidnapped my charge I ain't believing shit".
Welcome to Final Fantasy! This is the part where it suddenly gets Fantastical.Now.
We know that in this setting, even older men can be powerful fighters. We know magic is a potent weapon, and one that is directly linked to one's Faith. We know Delacroix was not above murdering Ludovich Baert in cold blood. So at this point, my expectations are set: Delacroix will summon his men into the oratory, and we'll start another close quarter battle, surrounded, against a smattering of knightly classes and mages, with Delacroix as a more powerful than usual mage of some kind.
Well. I was wrong.
The Cardinal produces the Zodiac Stone…
Oh, Final Fantasy.
What the fuck is that.
Or as you put it, it's the Jenova moment. Dunno what I would pinpoint as where in FFVIII the game turns from "magical military high school" to "insane supermagic shenanigans", maybe when Time Travel gets involved?
Oh also for everyone's listening pleasure, the track that plays for this boss fight:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ddKvvuTFt4
Cu is one hell of an introduction to "hey what if monster-type combatants in FFT were actually a huge threat?" Graduating from "this mob throws rocks and has Counter Tackle", to "massive AoE status effects and stupid high damage".
You know, with the whole ??? thing I wonder if you can actually deplete his MP bar entirely or not with the right skills? Probably less efficient then just killing the guy, but still, he obviously has an actual HP cap under the question marks, presumably there's an MP one too.
Throw is Throw, same as ever for Ninjas. Has some unique cheaper items you can toss, but also if you're gathering a lot of spare equipment (or just overflowing in money) you can probably get some pretty good value out of chucking the twenty extra copies of Excalibur in your back pocket. Might be even more effective than in other FF games since enemies and bosses are far less likely to go "nice toss unfortunately damage caps at 9999 and I have ten million HP".
Yup, there's a few ways of dealing with the action economy for big bosses like this. Forcing a 1v1 (keep your Ramza up to combat par for this reason, obviously), having a boss that's just that bulky with big dangerous AoEs, could probably even pull something similar to bosses having multiple turns in Turn-based RPGs and just give them a super high speed stat/perma-Haste.
We'll see how the game continues to handle it as we go on, because let's be honest no way you're fighting just one demon monstrosity and then moving on without any for the rest of the game.
Who could have expected that Final Fantasy would drive sideways into crazy magical super demon plots? We haven't seen this in the entire PSX era!
Delita really just played every single person in the room, huh? Set up his scheme, shot his shot, killed the one guy who might be able to refute it without asking for a trial, and now he goes from "nobody commoner" to "commander of an order of knights".
And there's no doubt in my mind he'll keep climbing. After all, history remembers him as some kind of hero according to the intro, right?
Yeah, it's kind of the Fire Emblem Permadeath problem except even worse, because FE games usually have at least a few side characters or advisors going along with the main lord who can't die, or some FE games will just straight up go "oh nah it's just a crippling wound keeping them off the battlefield they still get to show up in cutscenes and I guess die offscreen before the individual ending slides". FFT would probably benefit from at least having checks of "is X still alive" for more dialogue between maps, or even having characters like Mustadio and Agrias instead of dying getting "permanently crippled" and unable to keep fighting if they hit the death count in battle... though at the same time that can run into some eyebrow raising in a game like Final Fantasy where super duper healing and Raise spells exist.
That's the other side of the coin, yes. If these kinds of games had the dev time and inclination to actually modify the plot for every potential branch of character deaths and the like? Well hey, that's peak content. Back on the Fire Emblem train, Path of Radiance actually has a bunch of alternate cutscenes in the early-game if you keep getting the Greil Mercenaries killed that early. Unfortunately, it's a lot of dev time for things that the average player probably won't see or care about, so... most devs don't bother.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
One other thing, the Lucavi whose name is giving my spellcheck fits speaks in Iambic Pentameter.
I love when games do this kind of shit. Gravemind comes to mind as another video game villain who uses this trick to show his class, intelligence, and otherworldliness.
I love when games do this kind of shit. Gravemind comes to mind as another video game villain who uses this trick to show his class, intelligence, and otherworldliness.
- Location
- the Republic
- Pronouns
- He/They
Honestly I'm just thinking about the counter-counter-history now, where Delita is still the hero but with a secret common past and Ramza is the hidden villain (stained by bastardy, implicitly) out for blood.
I mean, interpret this latest turn of events without the Zodiac Stone. Ramza the failed knight and outcast and his band of rogue mercenaries murder their way through a bunch of Church knights, rock up to the Cardinal's castle, and straight-up execute an elderly prince of the Church. Clearly he's the real bad guy here.
I mean, interpret this latest turn of events without the Zodiac Stone. Ramza the failed knight and outcast and his band of rogue mercenaries murder their way through a bunch of Church knights, rock up to the Cardinal's castle, and straight-up execute an elderly prince of the Church. Clearly he's the real bad guy here.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
'assuming Delacroix isn't lying' is doing some heavy lifting here. Whatever the truth is, Ramza obviously doesn't believe one word of Delacroix's explanation -- he explicitly says Delacroix is lying, even.
So from that point, I think Ramza is basically saying 'I don't give a shit about your sophistry and claims to be changing the world. I'm not a megalomaniac and you can't tempt me with ambition; I want to do what is right and right in front of me right now, and that's stopping people from hurting innocents'.
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Reminds me of Sam being tempted by the Ring, actually.
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- Pronouns
- Him/He
I wonder if the 'dont want to change the world' is something that makes more thematic sense then character sense.
After all, right after this fight we have a lot of plot centered on Delita, who sure seems to have ambitions of some sort.
After all, right after this fight we have a lot of plot centered on Delita, who sure seems to have ambitions of some sort.
daniel_gudman
KING (in land of blind)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Yeah like, so far the only theory of Changing The World anybody has put forward is "my faction should be in charge"
Yeah, I don't read it as Ramza trying to express some sort of neutrality or indolence. Within the context of who he is talking to after what's just happened, it seems to be more like:
Delacroix: Say, you're a noble scion with a good sword arm and a disgruntled attitude towards society. If you've got an ounce of ambition, you should really work for me. My sketchy conspiracy is going to change (and more importantly rule) the world.
Ramza: I don't have so much as a thimbleful of ambition, much less whatever you assholes have going on.
Delacroix: Wrong orifice, now die. *horrifying transformation sequence into a giant mouth monster*
Delacroix: Say, you're a noble scion with a good sword arm and a disgruntled attitude towards society. If you've got an ounce of ambition, you should really work for me. My sketchy conspiracy is going to change (and more importantly rule) the world.
Ramza: I don't have so much as a thimbleful of ambition, much less whatever you assholes have going on.
Delacroix: Wrong orifice, now die. *horrifying transformation sequence into a giant mouth monster*
Cuchulainn just in time for Halloween!
Not so fun fact about Cuchulainn. He actually has multiple abilities with the same name but different effects so he technically has Bio, Bio, Bio, Bio2, Bio2, Bio2, Bio2, Bio3, Bio3, and Bio3. Thankfully the levels each share the same chant but I'll leave that to Thozmp.
Not so fun fact about Cuchulainn. He actually has multiple abilities with the same name but different effects so he technically has Bio, Bio, Bio, Bio2, Bio2, Bio2, Bio2, Bio3, Bio3, and Bio3. Thankfully the levels each share the same chant but I'll leave that to Thozmp.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh also, I think the game tried to warn you about the incoming demonic warcrimes by throwing that swamp level at you @Omicron. I wouldn't be surprised if there was poison nullification stuff available to you as well as sleep counters.
And you should know by now that in a FF game (or really any game with an approximately linear sequence) if you get access to equipment to protect against things you haven't seen much so far, you're about to get slammed by them. It's like finding a save point in front of a locked door or ammo and health in an empty room.
And you should know by now that in a FF game (or really any game with an approximately linear sequence) if you get access to equipment to protect against things you haven't seen much so far, you're about to get slammed by them. It's like finding a save point in front of a locked door or ammo and health in an empty room.
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OkayishGatsby
This Titan is Fine
Hey, you remember who else got an offer to join ranks from some shady schemer of suspect scruples? A virgo with some passing sword skill perhaps?
- Location
- Spain
Presumably, he will need to fight 12 of them, since each stone has a Zodiac sign.
Or possibly 13 if their boss has a secret Zodiac sign.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Or maybe back down to 12 if one of them does in fact correspond to Judas...
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
It does; you can Jump just fine on every map in the game. Well, as long as you don't put yourself under an archway / tunnel like you did at Lionel Gate - specifically, a terrain squares with two different altitudes, and you're standing on the lower of the two. That's the only thing that prevents jumping.
Not necessarily; most status effect won't work on enemies with the Zodiak flag, but others can - it depends on the individual character. A lot of previous bosses, like Gaffgarion, were also immune to a number of status effects.
It's not the ability which is at fault here - Ramza is. And, appropriately enough, the Zodiak.
See, Cardinal Delacroix is a Male Scorpio; that's the astrological sign that has worst possible compatibility with Male Taurus, which your Ramza is. Therefore, all of Ramza's damage in this fight was being cut by 50%; the Cardinal's damage is also being cut back in return - you mentioned Ramza surviving Bio3, right? - but, as you've seen, Cuchulain is primarily a statuser, so that's no issue.
And remember, Taurus also had good compatibility with Gaffgarion, which increased his damage by 25% against Ramza, making the duel harder... and back in chapter one, it did the same thing against Algus and Wiegraf. Basically, by picking Taurus as your zodiak sign, you've been playing the game at the highest difficulty level (where bosses are concerned, at least) the whole time. Of your own free will, of course - you choose the sign, after all.
None of the Swordskill abilities are specifically Holy elemental; they are the same element as the sword you're wielding, so usually none, but in the case of wielding the Coral Sword as you probably were here, they're Lightning elemental. They'll only be Holy elemental if you're wielding a Holy-elemental sword, of which the game has exactly one.
No, the issue here is, once again, the Zodiak: Cancer, like Agrias is, has good compatibility with Scorpio, so she's getting 25% extra damage. As for why Cleansing Strike is dealing more damage - that would be because the ability itself is more powerful. The Damage Formula for Swordskills works like so: (WP + Y) x PA, where Y is different for each Swordskill. Cleansing Strike has a +3 modifier, while Judgment Blade and Northswain's Strike have a +2 modifier. Hallowed Bolt has +4 and Divine Ruination has +5. The combination of the two compounds the damage increase.
They, in fact, started selling the Defense Ring for 5000 gil since you brought Ovelia to Lionel and meet Delacroix the first time; Defense Ring, of course, preventing both Sleep and Doom.
Throw actually has a very simple formula of WP of the weapon you're throwing x Speed. It's the only ability in the game that uses pure speed for damage, which is fitting considering Ninja are the fastest class. Of course, also contributing to the damage in this particular fight is that Hester, like Agrias, appear to be a Cancer, therefore has good Zodiak compatibility and inflicts 25% extra damage. I imagine that her normal Ninja attack was also especially damaging? Especially considering that Ninja have that unique ability of theirs with their standard attack, which you don't seem to have mentioned yet.
Yes, this will not be the last time, make sure to keep checking after each boss fight, because I guarantee you're going to be missing more dialogue going forwards. Some battles are really egregious about it.
Completely and intentionally related, the "Brave Story" menu has, alongside the Character submenu you've mentioned mutliple times, a "Record" and "Treasures" sub-menu that you really should double check again, as they contain extra information you might want to be aware about.
I mean, you did, but that's because the WotL is messing with the narrative. Without the scene, especially when we're told Ovelia was brought in asleep, it was actually easy to interpret this as the fake conspirator having made the journey with Delita, to better sell the story, and there would be no reason to think this wasn't the case - indeed, it'd make much more sense and raise less suspicion if that was the case. The added scene has introduced a plot hole in the story that wasn't originally there.
It does feel like that narration was being delivered from the point of view of a Goltana supporter, doesn't it?
Before you leave Dorter, equip a character with the "Poach" ability (from the Thief class) and check the shops again.
Consider this for a moment: the Cardinal was already seeking the stones before transforming in front of Ramza. That's an important detail.
Yes, you can, just like you can deplete their HP, and it's proportionally about the same difficulty - the "Zodiak" flag, in addition to hiding the precise HP, MP and CT values of an enemy, will also multiply their base HP and MP by x10.
Indeed, and without having been shown that Ovelia agreed with it, this would be a very easy thought for the players to have - which is then followed by the scene of Ovelia having been delivered to Zeltennia, which comes as a surprise to the player. By not revealing it until that point, Ramza's rationale for fighting Delacroix immediately, which is not believing what he's saying about Ovelia, is much more immediately apparent to the player.
There aren't, actually, any items that immunize from poison currently available for @Omicron to buy at this point in the game. However, Antidotes and Esuna have been available since the start of the game, and Salve/Heal (which is in Ramza's skillset like it is in every other Squire's), while curing only three statuses, does manage to have Poison be one of those. So... plenty of counters to poison available without need for equipment.
I'll probably have the PSX translation notes up sometimes tomorrow - I was waiting for this before posting them because the two Gaffgarion fights had relatively little dialogue to compare.
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