Why do you think they overlooked it, rather then intentionally made the end of chapter 3 difficult on purpose? Game design philosophy was quite different 25+ years ago, when games didn't need to sell seven digits to be considered a success, and most people weren't gamers.
There's very much a trend where dramatic story fights are often the most difficult ones as well, where the plot and gameplay climax. There are a few exceptions, but think about the other hard battles.
Goland Execution site, Lionel Castle (outside and inside), Orbonne monastery, are all big dramatic moments that are notably more difficult then other battles, while for the most part 'random encounters' for new nodes have barely any plot, or challenge. The woods from this update and the swamp while trying to get to Goug, or the forest where you picked up Boco are all snoozers of both plot and combat.
Yeah, FFT is definitely a game where the story encounters, especially the big ones, are bespoke and are intentionally designed to be challenging and satisfying to win.
However it is also a game where the story battles don't scale but the random ones do, which means two random goblins can throw some pretty incredible hands if you're not careful.
Also my story of young elementary-school me playing FFT ended here. I softlocked myself here while underleveled, bashing my head against Wiegraf again and again, occasionally beating the first phase before wiping to the second. Until one day, after a break, I finally beat him. It offered me a chance to save, so obviously I pressed X.
This was the PSX version. Rafa then died the first turn. I shut off the game and never played it for almost a decade.
However it is also a game where the story battles don't scale but the random ones do, which means two random goblins can throw some pretty incredible hands if you're not careful.
It is a little bit funny to level so much that a random gobbo is almost a match for Belias. Just imagine the overmuscled, four-armed ram head getting hit by a Gobbo's eye gouge and screaming.
Whenever I reached this part, I always prayed that Rafa was a coward like Argath because the fool at least knew to gtfo when he realized he was outnumbered.
Unfortunately, Rafa was always a brave lass and thus she got murked faster than Ramza can move.
Edit: perhaps it was the PSX translation or just me being young when I played this, but I never caught post-Lucavi Wiegraf basically ditching Milleuda's memory for good. No wonder Folmarv was so dismissive of Izlude; any memories he had of his son is basically a playable sd card the Lucavi take a look once to remember the name of and then put it aside. Zero attachment at all, practically a new person occupying the flesh.
Also, Elmdore? Him being killed might actually be true; he was basically killed and in that last moment of desperation much like Wiegraf, called for help. The Lucavi answered. When he start carrying an auracite around, well, that's on him. He probably even have had the Stone for a while.
Dancer is a female-exclusive job with an interesting if slightly odd mechanic. The Dancer can learn from a menu of Dances, each of which has an effect; every turn, the Dance targets all enemies in the encounter. This means a Dancer can operate from the rear lines, avoiding contact with opponents, while triggering her Dance effects every turn. Effects include damage (which cannot miss, but has low damage value), MP drain, status effects, Slow…
It sounds potentially really useful. In practice? Well, we'll see soon.
Dancer has a niche, for sure, it's certainly better than some other jobs... though it also still runs into the same issue as any status-effect focused job where you might end up going "yeah I COULD debilitate the enemy, or I could just stab them really really hard and kill them first".
So as it turns out, men who have fused with the Zodiac Stone can alternate between their human form and their demonic form. This has implications, chiefly that any given character we've met so far could, potentially, have already been one of the Lucavi in disguise.
He summons Marach, who enters dragging Isilud with him. It turns out it was option B after all - Marach captured Isilud on the road, and most likely Alma with him, and then merely let it be tacitly implied that he was working with the Knights Templar when he very much wasn't.
Grand Duke Barrington informs Folmarv that he has taken the Scorpio and Taurus stones for safekeeping, but Folmarv is barely listening to him; he approaches Isilud and slaps him in the face, calling him a "worthless fool of a son."
So that was Grand Duke Barrington's play - take the stones, take the scriptures, then force the Knights Templar to the table holding all the cards. He speaks of it as "cooperating" but it's transparent that this man wants to be king; he's been content to allow Larg and Goltanna to bleed each other while he sat on his superior resources, hoarding soldiers, weapons, mages and assassins, waiting to make his move. The only threat to his plan at this stage would, of course, be the other faction currently doing the exact same thing - the Church.
High Confessor Funebris is planning on using Ovelia as a puppet figure while power goes back to the Church. Grand Duke Barrington's proposal is most likely going to be something along the lines of, "ditch the Princess, I get to be King, we will share power but I'm the one in the big chair." Still a better deal for the Church than what they have right now, and it would give them the benefit of an alliance with the most powerful lord in Ivalice that would make victory easier, but it falls short of their current goal, where they get to be the ones in charge through a figurehead. It would be a compromise. But Barrington wields two advantages here: the stick of "I have two of the Stones you need and (will soon have) the Scriptures that can reveal the truth about Saint Ajora," and the carrot of "by working with me you're working with the King of the Forge and nothing could ever stand in the way of our combined forces." It's a bitter pill to swallow, but the benefits are enough that, if Barrington were currently making this offer to the High Confessor himself, the man might actually go along with it.
But Grand Duke Barrington isn't making this offer to High Confessor Funebris. He's making it to Lord Commander Folmarv.
This is probably the single most iconic panel in The Long Halloween. It tells a story, or rather the culmination of one, the turning point in the question of what genre Batman even is. Two-Face, once an ordinary attorney general, now a "freak," sits at Falcone's own desk, surrounded by costumed weirdos, several of which have actual superpowers.
Grand Duke Barrington has laid out his plans. He's built up his assets. He has every card in hand. Folmarv might refuse his generous offer and the Church turn against him, and in that case they would have to live with the consequences; that's something he's willing to risk. One thing that isn't on his mind at all, because it doesn't make sense, is that by inviting Folmarv, one lone man, into his office surrounded by his own knights, in the middle of a castle full of hundreds of his best men, he might have put himself in physical danger. This is a political situation, with political stakes. No one is about to pull a sword here. That doesn't make any sense.
Thunder flashes. The lights in the room take on a red tint.
You know, if it weren't a plan he was using against a literal demon.
Though honestly even the demon thing aside, you would think people in the FFT universe would be much more wary of the potential personal power someone like Folmarv can wield. It's one thing for say a gangster in our world with multiple guards around to feel safe pulling this shit on someone called into their office, it's another thing entirely in a world where people like Thunder God Cid exist who can presumably delete everyone in a room if they really want to. Even without the Lucavi thing, who's to say normal human Folmarv couldn't cleave his way through Barrington's forces? Or at the very least, slice his plans to ribbons along with his throat then leap out a window, or even teleport since that's an established thing in-universe.
The Dance I selected for this trial, Forbidden Dance, has a chance to inflict Blind, Confuse, Silence, Toad, Poison, Slow, Stop, and Sleep. Unfortunately, what sounds like a Bad Breath tier of "fuck you" is anything but. As it turns out, it inflicts one of these effects, at random. And it has about a 50% chance to hit per target. So I just paid to inflict half of the enemy party with a single randomized status effect. As it turns out, that ends up being Poison on one Archer, Silence on one Knight (so nothing, in effect), and Frog on another Knight.
I guess it would be a bit too powerful to give you a full-screen Bad Breath on command.
...Actually, does FFT have Malboros in the monster roster? Can you recruit one and have it Bad Breath the shit out of your enemies? Important knowledge.
Dancer may be good but to my brain it doesn't feel good. I'm sure that statistically, a 50% chance attack that targets all enemies on the battlefield is plenty useful, but the sheer number of "Missed" labels floating over my enemies' heads is just very painful to watch. Also, there's a strange dynamic at work; typically when you're winning in FFT, you're facing fewer and fewer enemies each turn. But the fewer enemies there are, the less enemies Dance is targeting, and the less interesting its trade-off of "targets everyone" becomes.
The solution, I think, is to just learn to use Dance strategically. While the game frames Dance as being continuous, and every time you try to take an action you get a prompt of "this will interrupt the Dance!", we can just choose to do it anyway. So using Dance on "off-turns" between moving around and doing normal character stuff seems… Fine?
A special mention should be made of Mincing Minuet. Mincing Minuet doesn't have a miss chance. It hits all enemies, every turn. It's just that the damage it hits them for is, like… 11 in Hester's Dancer job and 18 if I turn her back into a Ninja, which is pathetic. I could buff that by raising her Bravery, I'm told, but that seems very painstaking.
Dancer is a class that's best either in larger maps where nobody's properly engaging with each other for the first few rounds, or when you decide to stack several of them in the back line all spamming the same dance so the effects stack and start to seriously overwhelm the enemy. I've gotten some fun out of the speed debuffing dance that way before, where eventually all the enemies move like they're stuck in molasses and you clean up at your own speed.
Alma, showing incredible empathy for someone who's been abducted and held in a dingy cell to be used as ransom against her brother, holds the man's hand and tells him to be strong. And the guard, in what is also a nice little gesture of humanity, tells the girl - his lord's prisoner, someone to whom he owes no loyalty or care - that she must leave this place, for there is only death here.
It's a touching scene, for how short it is. The sprite works helps a lot to sell it - the way the man's head falls as his life gives out, Alma joining her hands in prayer over the body of this man she did not know and who served someone who only hurt her - I really like it. And then she leaves, to whatever horror even now stalks the halls of Castle Riovanes.
Wiegraf Folles. The hero. The revolutionary. The White Knight. The man whose ideals would not allow him to die. The bereaved brother for whom the line between vengeance and righteousness has become so blurred as to be indistinguishable. To date, our strongest opponent by far, now empowered by the Zodiac Stone. He stands there in the middle of a hall full of dead knights, whom he has clearly just slain himself, and yet looks not the least bit tired.
Why does this tragic figure, this blood-stained hero, this man who sold his conscience and honor in hope of justice, revenge, change, have to say for himself?
Wiegraf: "So, you've come. Draw your sword, Ramza." [Ramza does not do so.] "Not in the mood? I hope you will not object to me drawing mine." Ramza: "I pity you, Wiegraf. More than you know. What must Milleuda think, to see you now? You would sell your soul to the Lucavi to slake your thirst for revenge." Wiegraf: "Revenge? You think that is what drives me? I have no such petty concerns. I do not fight to avenge Milleuda's death. I sow the seeds of chaos in the world of men, and reap the anguished cries of the weak. But worry not, Ramza. Yours is a special case. I shall kill *you* myself!"
Well.
There goes Wiegraf Folles. Hollowed out by a demonic presence from beyond the world, and not even aware that he's gone. Oh, I fully believe that the thing standing in front of us now thinks it's Wiegraf Folles, it retains continuity of memory, it thinks of itself as Wiegraf changed and bettered rather than as a body snatcher who claimed the body of someone who happened to make the wrong pact. But everything that was Wiegraf - his ideals, his pain, his thirst for revenge, his moral compromises with his own principles - all of that is gone, replaced by a thing that claims to care for nothing but chaos, pain, and death.
A thing of evil, pure and simple. Our greatest adversary stands before us now for the last time, and he's already gone.
Well. Now to us falls the task of making his body catch up to where his soul's already left.
Talk of how this fight softlocked thousands of children the world over who didn't rotate saves aside, man this really is a sorry conclusion to Wiegraf's character arc, isn't it? From a man fighting for the common people, not even in some true rebellion to overthrow the nobility but just to get them the pay they were promised, to a demon wearing his skin that proclaims them all sheep to be crushed under his might.
Unfortunately Ramza just doesn't have the stored Chemist JP to buy Auto-Potion, so that option would require quitting out of the battle, reloading our save from before the castle rampart battle, and going through it - and all the attending cutscenes - again. And I am not doing that except as a last resort.
Especially because right now, Ramza and Wiegraf are both the same level, and I'll be damned if I let this bastard make me outlevel him in order to beat him.
This picture, this one screenshot that opens every battle with Wiegraf, is engraved on the inside of my eyelids. It's what I see when I go to sleep at night:
Hallowed Bolt. Hallowed Bolt. Hallowed Bolt. He never opens up with anything else, he never follows up with anything else, he only used a standard attack that one time, as a trick, to give me false hope.
Increasingly, with each crushing defeat, the inevitable conclusion draws closer, until it dawns upon me, terrible and beautiful; this is how Moses must have felt when God told him to go forth and announce the Plagues.
We have to kill Wiegraf in a single hit.
Tank the first Hallowed Bolt. Move up. Hit him hard enough to delete his entire HP bar, meaning he never gets off a Counter.
So, for my own experience with this fight... part of it was probably a matter of those goddamn Zodiac signs, because I don't remember Wiegraf doing nearly as much damage. But what I did, was running around the sides of the arena with Monk/Squire Ramza, spamming Tailwind and Chakra in succession until I was massively outspeeding him, then just beat him to death.
Unfortunately, this would have Consequences in the follow up.
Belias, the Gigas: "I am come."
[Ramza's party enters the room.] Belias, the Gigas: "You fight alone no more? Then nor shall I. Here join me, followers loyal and true."
[He crosses his arms and opens them, bellowing a cry; several demons appear behind him.] Belias, the Gigas: "The battle now is joined, Ramza Beoulve! Behold for true fell pow'r of the Dark!"
[OBJCTIVE: DEFEAT BELIAS!]
As for the second half of my fight here back in the day, what hilariously did me in was the very speed boosts I used to defeat Wiegraf. Ramza was so hopped up on Tailwinds that he was getting 3-4 turns for every one turn of the enemy... which meant when he predictably went down since he came injured from the Wiegraf fight, his body almost instantly exploded into a crystal for a game over before I could react. Peak Content.
As, shockingly, did Isilud. Folmarv's own son, and an extremely skilled fighter in his own right. Was he killed for his failure? Or merely because he was there, and the Folmarv-Lucavi had no interest in holding back his blows?
I think that what doomed Isilud is that he actually believed in the cause of the conspiracy, and to uphold that belief, he had to be fooled into believing the Stones were divine and good. Once Folmarv revealed his true demonic form to him, that charade could not be sustained, and Isilud lost his usefulness. So the Lucavi disposed of him.
Little of column A, little of column B, that's my guess. Folmarv was already annoyed that Isilud had failed him by getting captured in the first place, so the moment his "son" raised his sword against the demon wearing his father's skin, he just took the opportunity to get rid of a potential loose end.
Unfortunately, Folmarv enters them. He approaches Alma, promising her her death will be quick, when he is interrupted by a loud bellow from afar - Belias's death cry. Folmarv declares Ramza to be bad luck for them, then approaches Alma, but just as he is about to seize her and no doubt kill her, something on his person reacts to her presence.
Folmarv: "What's this? Virgo stirs." [He looks at Alma.] "You? Could it really be?" [He grabs her and pulls her closer.] "Mayhap our luck turns! I should not have thought to find our quarry here! I had feared we might search another century or more and still not find you!" Alma: "What are you talking about? Release me!" Folmarv: "Do not worry, your life is safe. Now, come!"
[He punches her in the gut, and she passes out; he swings her body over his shoulder, and teleports away. Without Folmarv noticing it, the Pisces stone rolls out of her clothes before he does.]
…well.
Congrats to whoever called the "Alma connects to the Virgo Stone" twist, I should have seen it coming and didn't until someone raised the possibility.
Is Alma the… what, reincarnation? Of one of the Lucavi? Or just a person destined to make connection with the Virgo Stone?
Does that mean that Delacroix and Wiegraf were similarly connected to the Scorpio and Belias stones? This is intriguing but we don't have much else to go on at the moment.
Hopefully we're not going to be forced to kill Alma after she transforms into some kind of fucked up demon that is rapidly losing all its ethics and emotional connection to other humans. That would be… unfortunate.
Well, from what we've seen so far the stones have to react to a direct wish/agreement with the person connected to them, so Alma is probably fine as long as she doesn't sign any spooky magical contracts with a talking orb? I mean Isilud was right there with a stone of his own which presumably was attuned or reacted to him if his dad handed it out... or maybe not since it didn't rise up in on his deathbed offering power.
Barrington: "Vengeance? You truly believe that you are capable of exacting vengeance on me? I am your father, Rapha - the man who raised you from a girl! You cannot kill your own father. Though you are welcome to try!"
[A moment passes. Rapha does not move.] Barrington: "*chuckle* You cannot do it. Do you know why? The flesh remembers, Rapha. It remembers fear, cold and trembling. But it will not always be so. In time, your fear will blossom into another flower - and I shall have that one as well."
Oh, wow. I guess that's one method of disposing of the old grand duke. She just… threw him off the rooftop. Literally threw him. An absolute dunking.
So much is happening, man. I was fully expecting things to resolve and Chapter 3 to end on everyone leaving the castle, but no. Turns out Barrington managed to escape Folmarv only to be cornered by Rapha and then he shot Marach and now a mysterious third party just appeared who casually disposed of Barrington and…
They gotta set up for Chapter 4 I guess, so we go right into the deep end with "here's some of the stuff you have to look forward to fighting in the near future".
And there we have Rapha and Marach joining our party. I do not know if I will make use of them; as I've said before, I kind of hate the random factor of the Manta abilities. They have a little time before joining the Named Unit Oblivion Pit, as Ramza will have a brief dialogue with them to open the next chapter before we can save and then get them killed in random encounters so they have to vanish from the narrative.
Spoilers, you will 100% probably end up dumping these two on the bench. I've yet to meet anyone who looked at two new characters joining this late with a skillset like theirs go "yeah I want to invest in that", since iirc just like every other named character they join without any coverage in other jobs. And where Mustadio joins early enough with a few unique abilities that are nice incentive to train him, and Agrias is Agrias, these two just don't have much going for them.
There's a solid core there, and I do appreciate how efficient the game is at establishing the previously unmentioned Grand Duke Barrington as a major player who's been lying in wait, only to then use this as a jumping off point to demonstrate the true power of the ones manipulating this game of thrones behind the scenes. And using him in that way requires some degree of emotional investment in his fate, so giving us a sympathetic character who is connected to him to get attached to is an obvious way to do it. I like Rapha. But everything about her arc and Marach's is very rushed, the game has no time for anything but the bare minimum, which would be fine if she stayed with us afterwards to explore her personality and where she goes from there… Except no, she has to go in Schrodinger's Box along with every other party member who isn't Ramza.
The real problem is Marach. Because that man has not earned his redemption. He went from actively trying to kill Rapha to throwing himself in front of a bullet from her and then hugging it out after being raised from the dead, a mercy that better characters deserved. At least Isilud genuinely believed he did the right thing! I think it's the implied sexual assault angle that makes the whole thing especially gross, with Marach being outright told what Barrington did to Rapha and reacting by slapping her in the face, which is just. This is an awful, awful little man. But I guess he's good now.
I can see where the writers were trying to come from with the sudden turn, I guess? Marach is a guy filled with anger at the whole situation and in extreme denial that his father-figure could have actually sexually assaulted his sister, so the moment he hears an actual undeniable confirmation of it from the man's lips himself? He's fully ride or die "Fuck you" back to Barrington. But yes, it really doesn't feel earned when Marach has had all of 3 minutes of screentime up to this point, all of which is him being a raging asshole and bootlicker.
No, she actually behaved extremely safely, withdrawing immediately behind my own characters and the cover of the rooftop's incline. I almost praised her AI in the update but then I thought I had no idea if that wasn't just pure luck lmao
You really dodged one hell of a rake there, this fight is notorious for being the extra fuck you on top of the Wiegraf gauntlet because it can easily be "battle starts, Rapha immediately runs forward and gets murdered by assassins before you even get an actual turn".
Man though. You're right, I just.......... do not give a single shit about Rapha and Marach? Marach is a bastard, Rapha is just There, and using one of the auricite to resurrect Marach from a Plotline Reinforced Cutscene Death Bullet To The Face is just insane. For what purpose? Especially when, once more, these two are about to have their souls sucked out and spirited away to the No Relevance Dimension while their mute flesh-puppets continue to serve in Witch-King Ramza's army of the dead.
"I just do not give a single shit about Rapha and Marach" is a very common reaction to those two, yes. Their entire little plot is basically bolted on to the last chunk of Chapter 3, instantly wraps up because they join the party and become blorbos, and to top it off the make the videogame sin of having RNG for their unique class attacks meaning the vast majority of people go "cool story now go warm the bench forever" in favor of characters like Mustadio's ranged disables and class synergy with a gun, or gods forbid Agrias shitting holy swords all over the field of battle.
On another note, I kinda wonder about the pacing. We're at the end of chapter 3 (out of 4? 5? Tactics Ogre had 4 chapters) and killed all of two Lucavi out of 12. I'm pretty sure there are not enough named characters with appropriate importance to be turned into ten demon bosses, so are we actually going to fight all of them? I guess we did take some stones out of circulation, but that in itself feels kinda weird: surely the game wouldn't end with them simply remaining unused, leaving us to wonder what kind of demon they could produce?
Then again, Tactics Ogre (or at least the remaster, I think some content was added in a later version) has placed most of its side quests in the last chapter for some bloody reason, so possibly that's where we'll meet most of Lucavi forces, with the main storyline focusing on the three established ones (Folmarv, Elmdore, possibly Alma), maybe introducing one or two more to the cast proper.
Without getting spoilery, yes the last chapter of FFT has a lot more content than previous chapters, including a good number of sidequests and optional missions.
Can I just say it's a real pity the Lucavi fade back to their host body when slain? Because Belias' horns would have made a killer hunting trophy for Ramza (or a pair of very, very impressive war-horns).
Sadly, Omi hasn't been making good use of the Poach ability to get unique superweapon trophies from killing the Lucavi. Don't tell him about this though, or he'll have to find an old save from the end of Chapter 2.
It is a little bit funny to level so much that a random gobbo is almost a match for Belias. Just imagine the overmuscled, four-armed ram head getting hit by a Gobbo's eye gouge and screaming.
Well hey, seeing as you can recruit monsters anyways, I'm sure someone out there has made this a reality! "The adventures of Ramza and his four goblin pals", I can see it now.
Honestly, post-Chapter 2 any guests that join us have to be as strong, or much stronger than our own blorbos from the get go to not get benched immediately because hell nah we are giving away our high-leveled specialized unit for a... subpar mage with extreme RNG attached for skill.
Training them alone will take way too much investment in time and effort, just to bring them to our level.
Well hey, seeing as you can recruit monsters anyways, I'm sure someone out there has made this a reality! "The adventures of Ramza and his four goblin pals", I can see it now.
Orran: "You are not alone! You have friends who stand with you!"
Ramza: "I know!"
*camera pulls back to reveal an ENTIRE HERD of chocobos surrounding Ramza*
Orran (many years later): ".......I can't put this in my papers! I was there and I still can't believe it! Okay, Ramza is the only member of his party, done."
At long last, it's the edition of The Rakes of Final Fantasy Tactics that you've all been waiting for!~ You know it. You love it. It's the Wall that softlocked many a first timer's playthrough. It's time for:
Rake #46: Raffa as a squishy NPC on a map with multiple enemy ninjas.
Status: Dodged. If your team is slow enough it's entirely possible to wipe before even having the opportunity to do anything to help Raffa. Ask me how I know.
Rake #47: The moat knight surprise
Status: This one is completely hidden when the level starts, even if you change angles or revolve the map, which catches a lot of people by surprise. And since the knight is a normal speed class it's very common to be caught with your units (say, any unit that's spent time as a Priest, Thief, or Ninja) out of position.
REVEALED:
Secret Rake #2: Setting Taurus (or Capricorn) as your zodiac sign
Status: Secret HARD MODE unlocked! Hope you enjoy having Wiegraf deal even more damage to Ramza, because he most assuredly does!
Rake #48: Wiegraf, Round 3
Status: The Wall. The source of many soft locks. The reason why the warning, "Multiple saves, in separate slots" exists.
Rake #48: Belias
Status: This is such a nasty surprise for 1st time players. Not as bad as Wiegraf, but the fact that this immediately follows the Wiegraf fight and has its own host of problems is why the 2nd Riovanes map is such a wall. Cyclops is a nasty summon with a huge area and the demon pals hit like trucks too. At least all their animations are rad.
Hidden Rake #49: Beating Wiegraf with high speed and low hp
Status: So one of the strategies for dealing with Wiegraf is to just Tailwind Ramza until you can go 3~4 times for every one of Wiegraf's. This is a pretty solid strategy. The issue is that if Belias blows you up (due to low HP or "Good" zodiac compatibility) Ramza will go from KO'd to crystal before any of your team has a chance to do anything. And unlike @Omicron we didn't have save states back in the heady days of the PS1 era so if Belias took us out we had to do the Wiegraf fight all over again.
Rake #50: Why hello there Elmdore (plus Celia and Lettie).
Status: Dodged. Raffa continues living her best life as a lemming and she can (and WILL) suicide herself by going after the very lethal opposition. Because it's worth highlighting: Elmdore and Co. are extremely dangerous, not just in raw damage but also in their ability to throw around nasty status effects like confuse, stop, and KO. Unless you end this battle immediately this battle goes south FAST. Of note, this battle has multiple rare steals so for people that are compulsive kleptomaniacs when playing FFT (such as myself) this is even harder. Mostly I just steal one of the girls' hats and call it a day. This is a HARD map to steal on.
But there's good news Omi! Riovanes was The Wall and you've successfully* surmounted it. I'm sure it'll be smooth sailing from here on out
In previous FF games, the demon/magic stuff would have been introduced before now and would be rather disconnected from the 'real' politicking that would have gotten the heroes started. I won't lie, it's a nice change to see things more tightly knitted together. No idea if it will last till the end of the game, though.
I can't remember if it was Belias or Rapha going full lemming that made me rage quit the first go around- though I do think I may have gotten a bit past this in WOTL?
I really don't know how to feel about Rapha's Stone being able to turn her grief into perfect resurrection, while Wiegraf's grief turns him into a giant sheep-man.
I guess the difference might be that Wiegraf's grief had already transformed him into an instrument of vengeance, so his wish was turned to that end? By the time he got the Stone, he'd already sold his ideals for revenge, and the lack of purity resulted in him becoming a Lucavi.
If so, that does suggest that Alma might not Lucavi-fy properly, since as a pure-hearted orthodox heroine type, she's more likely to be a Rapha than a Wiegraf.
The stones being something that could be used for good is also something that XIV does. The Return to Ivalice Raids routinely comment on that, and we do get some evidence as proof of that.
It's just it falls rather flat because of the origins of the stones and how many people are corrupted by them.
"The stones are a tool, they are not good or evil. They merely become so in the hands of their wielder!
"Now roll this rigged d100. Roll 90 or less and you turn into a horrific abomination"
To be as fair to Marach as possible, which isn't much but still, he reads less like a complicit abuser and more like a Victim of the Duke who essentially Stockholmed himself into thinking this was the best possible outcome for both himself and his sister.
Like, in the same conversation he talks about how the Duke rescued the both of them, fed them and clothed them and trained them and loved them like a surrogate father, and then tells Rafa how trying to get out of this life is impossible because his Spy network is omnipresent and he'll kill the both of them for leaving his side.
This doesn't read like a man who drank the Kool aid as much as it reads like he's terrified of the guy, and is lying to both himself and others about how much he owes him, and he can't just abandon him like that, and he's the closest thing to a paternal figure they have, and also oh Gods he has eyes everywhere we can't escape we should just appease him and really him abusing my sister is not so bad because the alternative is both of us dying.
Rationalization as a defense mechanism so he doesn't just suffer a mental break, and so he can pretend he's doing his best in taking care of his sister.
You can make it work, I've said it a few times, but that Ramza is theoretically the best offensive caster in the game between Mettle letting you boost his CT (Which lets you cast spells faster), and, well, His Final Mettle Skill, which is the highest damage spell in the game except I think the other untelegraphed spell that only a Summoner can learn by taking the hit at the very end of the Bonus Dungeon.
Honestly I think he is kind of a beast of a caster anyways. Black mage Ramza pretty trivially explodes Wiegraf and Gaff with one spell as long as you pick up something high tier instead of slowly picking up all the lower stuff.
The stones being something that could be used for good is also something that XIV does. The Return to Ivalice Raids routinely comment on that, and we do get some evidence as proof of that.
It's just it falls rather flat because of the origins of the stones and how many people are corrupted by them.
"The stones are a tool, they are not good or evil. They merely become so in the hands of their wielder!
"Now roll this rigged d100. Roll 90 or less and you turn into a horrific abomination"
To be fair, when Wiegraf agreed to accept the auracite's offer, he was solely thinking of killing Ramza. He wants to not die so that he can kill Ramza. Milleuda's dead as a doornail, so him wanting to live is very much so that he can continue committing violence. Violence is not pure. Vengeance is not pure.
The Stone reacted to that accordingly, impure wish with impure answer.
I assume the other Lucavi hosts are pretty much the same: Delacroix is probably his greed considering his real life reference, Elmdore being a Sephiroth analogue, some manner of bloodthirstiness, while Folmarv is probably something related to the Templarate itself- need for violence? Lust for power? Dissatisfaction with the Confessor? Anything is possible.
Rafa however, wished with her entire being to have Marach back. No other justification, just needing her brother back. It is, to put it simply, pure.
Since the auracite is not an incomplete Philosopher's stone but an actual magic stone, it grants that wish.
Why do you think they overlooked it, rather then intentionally made the end of chapter 3 difficult on purpose? Game design philosophy was quite different 25+ years ago, when games didn't need to sell seven digits to be considered a success, and most people weren't gamers.
There's very much a trend where dramatic story fights are often the most difficult ones as well, where the plot and gameplay climax. There are a few exceptions, but think about the other hard battles.
Goland Execution site, Lionel Castle (outside and inside), Orbonne monastery, are all big dramatic moments that are notably more difficult then other battles, while for the most part 'random encounters' for new nodes have barely any plot, or challenge. The woods from this update and the swamp while trying to get to Goug, or the forest where you picked up Boco are all snoozers of both plot and combat.
TBF, I do think there is a tangible difference in the kind of difficulty on offer. Normally, you're asked with considering your party as a whole. It doesn't matter that Ramza is not as good as Agrias. Or Gaffgarion. Or Delita. Or Wiegraf. He can still contribute to the overall strategy. Enemies may have unique classes with abilities unavailable to you, but yours is the superior intellect of an actual human being and the ability to synergy various skills to efficiently dismantle the opposition that may nominally be stronger than you.
Basically, while the game does ask you to consider your builds and not to do anything too stupid, there is a room to experiment, a room for suboptimal tactics that feel good, and you can compensate for inefficiencies with tactics (or grinding, I suppose).
Here, it all falls away. It's just you and Wiegraf, and you must turn Ramza into someone who can either delete him or survive long enough to chip away at his health. That's all about squeezing as much power out of a single unit as you can, which is not really a challenge the game gave you before that, so you may well be completely unprepared for that (and if you do find yourself unprepared, well, see others talking about softlocks and how, even if you do have saves you can fall back on, you'd have to do the castle gates battle again).
I can't speak for the authorial intent here, maybe the devs did want to present you with this kind of challenge here, but it's a clear break from the rest of the game.
I wonder how the Church is gonna blame this one on Ramza. Delacroix could be 'lone assassin killed our defenseless Cardinal' but this is a whole-ass castle complete with Grand Duke that just got blenderized, pinning that on one guy and his handful of squaddies seems like it'd be a reach.
"No, you don't understand, this heretic is a real goddamn badass."
"But these guards were torn apart, limb from limb!"
"Yeah, like, with his bare hands. Dude's crazy."
I think the funniest part of this Wiegraf fight is that we experience it from Omi's perspective, as a long and gruelling meta-struggle wherein every permutation of Ramza's abilities is tried and found wanting until that final loadout and that ultimate critical hit.
From the characters' perspective, Wiegraf talked a really big game until Ramza hopped up and smacked him in the mouth exactly once, forcing him to go "okay, goddamn, hold on, this kid's got hands" and immediately adopt his Final Form.
Ramza is now ten feet tall, have claws and spewing fire lol.
Fact that they have proof that someone did unleash knight-killing monsters in the Riovanes Castle is just chef's kiss to whatever the Templarate is cooking up to make The Heretic Ramza reputationally worse. Not to mention that Izlude's body is right there too.
I guess we now know why the Durai Papers writer got targeted by the Church for even attempting to clean Ramza's name. They are basically trying to help restore the reputation of the equivalent of not just a satanist, but The Satanist. In the Church's sermons, Ramza is basically The Big Bad. We are what the Zodiac Braves story cautioned against.
Also, @Omicron the water section in the Riovanes Castle Hall is Depth 2 iirc. That's the canal that linked the castle moat to whatever water source the castle is using. In gameplay terms, stepping into the water basically nullify your Action which is why even the Lucavi avoids stepping onto the water tiles. You need either the Floating boots or the Float skill to traverse the water section.
Of note, actually killing Wiegraf isn't necessary - putting him in critical will also win the duel. So, the threshold for alpha striking wasn't as high as his HP made it seem.
Also, there's a number of defensive strategies that could work (Autopotion is one, but not even close to the best one), depending on what abilities one has access to. There's a lot of different ways to defeat Wiegraf at Riovanes, it just requires a player to really know what they're doing - to have a plan and the tools to execute it.
Getting softlocked is still possible, of course, but considering the many ways around it, I am a bit surprised that it's as common an occurrence as it is. I always had more problem with the Execution Site fight than Riovanes.
Ugh, I remember this portion. It's that "One Fight/Stage" for me. Luckily I paid attention to the Save Prompt that says to create another save file.
My obsession with level-grinding did pay-off. I just had to change Ramza's Job to Monk, have an "Equip Heavy Armor" and Item command.
Took two tries on the first phase by abusing Chakra skill and getting OD'd on potions. The second phase took some more tries until I decided that everyone gets to have Item command and get high on drinking Potions. I also put Mustadio as Chemist for support.
About Auracites having holy and demonic aspects. I'm of the belief that the Lucavi in their defeat corrupted the Stones or the Braves were forced to use them as Sealing Cans because only those things have enough power to hold them
The magitech ancient civilizations used the Auracites to power most if not all of their machines. So originally they have a non-sinister use otherwise they would have corrupted whoever handled them.
Also, @Omicron the water section in the Riovanes Castle Hall is Depth 2 iirc. That's the canal that linked the castle moat to whatever water source the castle is using. In gameplay terms, stepping into the water basically nullify your Action which is why even the Lucavi avoids stepping onto the water tiles. You need either the Floating boots or the Float skill to traverse the water section.
A surprising number of non-human enemies are literally incapable of going into any water, even depth 1.
I suspect it's one of the few corners this game cuts, since any enemy who goes into the water then needs a bunch of additional sprites made for all the stuff they do, only now in water.
It's an unusual map for an unusual fight either way.
You can actually check which enemies have the "cannot enter water" condition and the game will tell you; about half of the monsters do. All of the Lucavi also have the condition, even if obviously it doesn't matter when there's no water on the battlefield you face them in, such as with Cuchulain.
I think the funniest part of this Wiegraf fight is that we experience it from Omi's perspective, as a long and gruelling meta-struggle wherein every permutation of Ramza's abilities is tried and found wanting until that final loadout and that ultimate critical hit.
From the characters' perspective, Wiegraf talked a really big game until Ramza hopped up and smacked him in the mouth exactly once, forcing him to go "okay, goddamn, hold on, this kid's got hands" and immediately adopt his Final Form.
Sadly, Omi hasn't been making good use of the Poach ability to get unique superweapon trophies from killing the Lucavi. Don't tell him about this though, or he'll have to find an old save from the end of Chapter 2.
In previous FF games, the demon/magic stuff would have been introduced before now and would be rather disconnected from the 'real' politicking that would have gotten the heroes started. I won't lie, it's a nice change to see things more tightly knitted together. No idea if it will last till the end of the game, though.
The game is absolutely not beating Berserk allegations since slow emergence of magic and the attempts of various characters (who until then lived in a gritty medieval low fantasyland) to cope with it is pretty central to its plot. Here's hoping to no Eclipse.
