"When I look in the mirror, I see a perfect society." - Argath Thadalfus
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Finished: Final Fantasy Tactics]
- Thread starter Omicron
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"When I look in the mirror, I see a perfect society." - Argath Thadalfus
Memes aside, I think it is of note that Argath does not hate poor people; that's a bit too modern and capitalistic for him. No, he hates commoners because he believes there is a hierarchy, and however horrible his personal situation he is still just that cut above some farmer asshole covered in mud.
Like, yes, with higher class tends to come higher money, but the two attributes aren't directly linked, to this mindset. A gentleman might fall on hard times, but better that than becoming a (ugh) merchant.
Like, yes, with higher class tends to come higher money, but the two attributes aren't directly linked, to this mindset. A gentleman might fall on hard times, but better that than becoming a (ugh) merchant.
Yeah it's just the classic nobility/blueblood mindset you get in medieval settings. Someone who can trace their oh so noble family lineage back seventeen generations is obviously inherently superior to anyone who can't, even if they're the last of their line with a whole twelve gil to their name while Baert is over there running an entire criminal empire with presumably millions of gil involved, and could have someone like Argath knocked off with a wave of his hand. He's still a filthy commoner with no nobility to his blood, and thus inherently inferior.
Or just for an entirely random example that comes to mind, I'm sure some people here have seen Corpse Bride? The entire initial premise before the supernatural gets involved is an out of cash rich nobility family bemoaning how terrible it is that they have to marry off their daughter to a (ugh) Fish Merchant family to restore their wealth, while said merchants are absolutely enthused by the idea of marrying their son into nobility because it will massively raise their status, despite the difference in wealth.
Or just for an entirely random example that comes to mind, I'm sure some people here have seen Corpse Bride? The entire initial premise before the supernatural gets involved is an out of cash rich nobility family bemoaning how terrible it is that they have to marry off their daughter to a (ugh) Fish Merchant family to restore their wealth, while said merchants are absolutely enthused by the idea of marrying their son into nobility because it will massively raise their status, despite the difference in wealth.
Final Fantasy Tactics, Part 22.A: Agrias's Closure, Beowulf and Reis's Closure, Midlight's Deep
New
- 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 Beoulve brought a few of his friends closure unhoped for, and vengeance most righteous.
The Story So Far: The War of the Lions is nearing its end. Nearly all the great lords of Ivalice have fallen; the White Lion and the Black Lion are no more, House Beoulve has fallen, and nothing stands in the way of Delita's ambition and Ovelia's restoration to the throne - nothing, that is, save for Folmarv, the last of the Lucavi, who now hurries to Orbonne Monastery where our story began to summon his master…
But that is not for today.
Today, we're doing side quests.
This is really not that different from the traditional "end of game round-up" most Final Fantasy games have had, except in all the ways that it is. For one thing, we don't have an airship; that means every movement between nodes has the risk of a random encounter, and I am getting tired of spending ten minutes blowing through Chocobos just to check a Rumor board two provinces over. For another, due to the way cities are (not) presented, a lot of checking for sidequests is just moving from node to node checking the Rumor board, then the Errand board, then trying to figure out which Rumors are unique to this town and whether they present actionable sidequest information. The shops now have their endgame equipment available (and have had for a while), so there's not much point to visiting them either, and it's not like there are ambient NPCs with updated dialogue to talk to. The Rumors themselves mostly take their place, and these haven't really updated in the last several hours. But checking that they haven't updated requires killing so many skeletons and chocobos moving through Ivalice, it's tedious.
Or you can just ask people in your thread to point you to the specific places you need to go to find the quests. That's a better idea.
Some Final Errands
I'd like to open this post with a sort of lightning round of my favorite Errands. Which is a bit weird to say, because the actual process of doing Errands is always the same: I shove Hadrian, Hester and Gillian (Osric technically exists but he's lv 17, sorry Osric) into the Errand Dimension, I spend two to three weeks running between nodes hoping not to trigger random encounters, and then I get them back with a mission report. It's the mission report that I care about here.
The thing is, several of these Errands actually tell stories that advance as you fulfill them; but they're drowned in a sea of so many "salvage another ship" and "restore another mine" standalones that it can be hard to keep track.
Do you remember Count Minimas? I touched on him very briefly last update. We've had two Errands with him so far; the first time, the man couldn't open his own vault because he had stuffed it so full of bags of gold that it jammed the mechanism. Our heroes managed to unjam the door, and they departed reflected on how Count Minimas is such a kind and charitable soul, a true man of the people and one of the few hopes of forthrightness in a realm as corrupt as Ivalice. The second time, Minimas had installed solid gold fittings on the door to his mansion and it was now too heavy to open, so he needed us to pry it open; our errand runners once again left thinking about how the philanthropic count was one of the few hopes for this corrupt country. Now, Count Minimas calls on us again, as his door has been replaced with a mimic! Our heroes bravely slay the beast, and return…
Oh my god! Count Minimas was corrupt? Incredible. Who could have possibly seen this coming.
There's an Errand where the characters spend eight hours locked in deadly battle against a chimera, a monster from legend thought long extinct, which could only have resulted from dark sorceries, leaving a sinister mystery in its wake… Until another Errand to put down a pet transformed into a monster reveals that it was an accident on the part of a local noble girl who found a magic book in her library and had started throwing around spells she didn't understand. Oops.
Some of the Errands also lean towards the quietly tragic, even if by nature of their format it's very understated:
Sometimes your only reward for an Errand is sadness!
Before we leave Errands behind us for the final time, I'd like to take a brief moment and do a sort of lightning round of cool, interesting things that I found in them that never really had a place to fit in the update - all this incidental worldbuilding that's hidden in the reports of completed missions.
Treasure Dives
I've mentioned salvage expeditions being an extremely common (and fairly repetitive in its reports) type of Errand. One thing I should mention is that, in-setting, they're a form of… Entertainment? We get a few mentions of large-scale salvage expeditions being organized by major trading companies, and people pay an entry fee to get to participate in a kind of free for all "dive for treasure" adventure. It's a widely-enjoyed activity practiced by children and the elderly, including some who come in far from landlocked region to take part in them.
The World Tree
In one of the many mining missions we undertook, our party ventured beyond a mountain range, and from there, they beheld an enormous tree, larger than they'd ever seen before; they wondered if it was the World Tree itself. This seems confirmed by an artifact reward, the Yggdrasil Mistletoe, a parasitic shrub that feeds on the bark of the World Tree.
The Lake Monster
There is a Lake called Lake Poescas. Our characters were dredging its depth for lost ruins, when they witnessed a rare sighting of a sea dragon. That dragon is called… Poessie. That is all.
Upon the Plateau
"The Lenalia Plateau is thought to be home to demons and all manners of evil spirit. A line from a local legend reads, "and a demon descended upon the high plateau of Lenalia, and the world was plunged into darkness." However, we witnessed only a series of quiet, rolling hills with no apparent relation to the cursed land of legend. And yet as we left, we did feel a strange chill." I love these little mundane yet ever so slightly eerie vignettes.
Assorted Adventurers
In many Errands, our characters team up with a cast of adventurers who are only ever mentioned there - the architect Joshul who helped them navigate an ancient labyrinth, the wilderness-tracking Vaschons, the adventurer Lamzen who is renowned on the mainland and came to Ivalice to explore the desert, or a mysterious ninja who aids our characters in apprehending a notorious purse snatcher.
It's really kind of a fascinating way to build up the world of the story under the limitations of the game. Anyway, that's about all for Errands.
Agrias's Closure
I have complicated feelings about this one.
To unlock this, we must head to Zeltennia Castle, which is a fair distance out of our way. Zeltennia, if you'll recall, was the seat of Duke Goltanna and the Order of the Southern Sky, the place where Princess Ovelia is being kept.
And it's on Princess Ovelia that we open.
Ovelia sits in prayer in the garden, and Agrias enters.
Ovelia: "Agrias!?"
[Agrias kneels; Lavian and Alicia enter after her.]
Agrias: "Pray forgive the late hour of our coming."
Ovelia: "Oh, Agrias! Gods be praised, you're alive! I'd no way of reaching you, and I'd feared the worst. Such a weight is lifted! Please, rise."
[Agrias rises.]
Agrias: "Forgive me. I gave cause for needless worry. Ser Ramza aided me. I travel with him even now."
Ovelia: "Then I owe Ramza a great debt of gratitude."
Ovelia: "You'll return to me now, won't you, Agrias? I need your sword and shield now more than ever. Your counsel I sorely miss as well. Please, Agrias, you will stay, yes?"
[Agrias lowers her head sadly, then looks at Ovelia again.]
Agrias: "My apologies, Your Majesty. I cannot tarry here, though it pains me to leave. There are nefarious forces afoot, who would take the helm of Ivalice and steer her to the doom of all. A darkness falls upon the realm, my lady, and it is but a matter of time before we are consumed by it. To turn a blind eye to this is to forsake the hallowed oath I swore: To defend this kingdom at peril of my life. My sword is sworn to you as well, and I mean for it to serve. Your safety requires that this plot be stopped. It is not lightly that I abandon duty, but only for the love I bear you and our kingdom. I can but pray that you forgive me, Highness."
[Ovelia takes a step back, lowering her gaze to the ground.]
Ovelia: "I… I see. But-"
Delita's Voice: "You're fond of this place, aren't you, Ovelia?"
[Delita enters.]
Agrias I'm begging you you have the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever
Delita: "Well met. Agrias, was it not?"
Agrias: "Unmannered dog! How dare you address Her Majesty by name!?"
Ovelia: "Agrias, it's all right."
Agrias: "But, my lady-!"
Ovelia: "It's fine. Pay it no heed."
Agrias: "If that is Your Majesty's wish…" [She turns to Delita and gives him a slight nod.] " Would that I had not to beg favors of such as you, but fate is not so kind. Responsibility for the well-being of Her Majesty the Princess rests in my hand. But at present, my hands toil toward another purpose. It is not without reluctance that I put my faith in you, but the choice is made for me. Please, let no harm come to Lady Ovelia!"
Delita: "Put your mind at ease. I will keep her safe."
Agrias: "I shall trust your words. Should aught befall Her Highness, know that my vengeance, and your death, will be swift."
Ovelia: "Agrias!"
[Agrias turns to Ovelia and approaches her; she takes Ovelia's hand and puts something in it.]
Agrias: "My lady. I want you to carry this, though I hope with all my heart you need not use it."
Delita: "Having a knife for protection may not be a bad idea."
[Ovelia bows her head.]
Ovelia: "Thank you, Agrias."
[Agrias steps back; she, Lavian and Alicia all kneel again.]
Agrias: "And now, I must take my leave."
Ovelia: "Father watch over you."
Agrias: "I promise this: When all is done, I shall return to you. Until such time, pray be safe."
Ovelia: "I shall await your return."
Agrias: "Fare-well, Majesty. And gods be with you." [She stands.] "Lavian, Alicia! With me!"
[They stand, and leave.]
Delita stands watching them leave, but Ovelia lowers her head sadly, with the shadow falling over her.
Yeah, no wonder people ship these two.
This scene is, of course, a WotL addition, and I'm torn about it. On the one hand, it's kind of a very flat scene. There isn't really much depth there; Agrias just appears in front of Ovelia, tells her that she's alive and fine and with Ramza but can't return to her side until the Lucavi threat is addressed, then turns to Delita and goes "I hate this but I entrust her care to you" while still cleary not liking him, and then she's gone. It's the bare minimum; the character beat is being serviced without any frills whatsoever. Except for the gift of the knife - Ovelia being a princess in a castle whose closest protector is a knight, she could have any weapon she wants; the knife is meaningful because it is Agrias who gives it to her, because it comes with a plea to use her if she needs it, a reminder that Ovelia may have (and is, implicitly, permitted) to defend herself with her own hands in the absence of her protector, and because it says that Agrias does not trust Delita so far that she would leave Ovelia without a means to defend herself in an emergency - from Delita, if need be.
I did briefly ask, "why doesn't Agrias try to kill Delita on the spot," but then I reviewed the course of events and… Agrias doesn't know that Delita was involved in Ovelia's capture at Lionel? The last time they saw each other was at Zeirchele Falls, then Cardinal Delacroix betrayed them while they were guests under his roof, and Delita later took Ovelia to Zeltennia. Agrias would probably have learned (from Ramza if nothing else) that Delita was involved in the whole scenario in some capacity, but not the precise details, because Ramza doesn't know them either. And since, by this point in the story, Delita is winning the war, Ovelia is safe in Zeltennia, and she seems well-inclined towards her, plus Delita had told to Ramza (who would have told Agrias) that he plans on giving Ovelia her own kingdom, she probably has more complicated and nuanced feelings that "I'm going to kill this asshole and get Ovelia back" at this point.
At the same time, while this is a very sauceless way to do this character beat, it has the merit of doing the character beat at all, holy shit. It took until War of the Lions for Agrias to have a scene of reuniting with Ovelia, enquiring about her safety and explaining her motives for staying away? Unbelievable. I'm looking back and the fact that Agrias's last line of dialogue would have been back in chapter 2 without Agrias's Birthday and this, and it's legitimately an insane way to write characters. Yeah, this is a pretty boring way to do that scene, but it gives Agrias and Ovelia A Moment, and that's really all they need.
Still think Agrias should have decked Delita in the face for Orbonne, tho.
This isn't actually the end of that particular plot beat, though the second half is wholly separated from the first. First, we must head to Gariland and hit up the tavern, where we find a new Rumor: Disorder in the Order. According to it, since the loss of Duke Larg and the Beoulves, the Order of the Northern Sky has been left leaderless, causing dissent which ultimately led to a group of knights deserting and setting up base at Brigand's Den to terrorize the nearby towns.
Well, time to put them all to the sword, I guess.
Two of the deserters - this Squire and the Ninja are having an argument; their rations are gone, striking carts on the road is doing little to feed them, the Ninja wants to outright sack a village. The other thinks it's going too far, but the Ninja appeals to their mutual sense of being wronged - they were at the front lines at Fort Besselat, while the Beoulves ran and hid; high time for them to simply take what they need. And if other members of the Order show up to bring them to heel, well, they'll simply bribe them away. The Squire likes the sound of that, and they agree - just in time for us to arrive.
Ramza tells them to surrender and they may keep their lives, the Ninja leader laughs it off and tells him to be gone but throws in a wild sexist comment about leaving "that wench" (Agrias) for them. More threats of sexual violence, great. Agrias is, of course, not particularly happy about this, and battle begins.
There are some interesting mechanical aspects to this battle, such as our first invisible opponents. Invisible doesn't appear to restrict us from targeting or hitting opponents, rather it guarantees a hit on the first attack made by an invisible enemy, like a one-use Concentration. An annoying feature of this battle, though, is that Agrias is back to being a guest unit, acting on her own.
Divine Ruination takes out a Squire in the back line.
The enemy Ninja is a powerful offensive unit; I make the mistake of advancing Hester early, but she falls short of attack range (except Throw, but I don't have good Throwable item), and the Ninja goes immediately after and takes her out.
Ramza: "Why lower yourselves to this? Did you not join the Order to protect the people?"
Ninja: "Are you daft, boy? We joined the Order to make a knight's living! And what a living it's been - driven on like beasts of burden, denied our pay and even proper rations! Would that honor flavored soup, I might have use for it. But I've had my fill of boiled lentils."
Honestly, this is retreading old grounds. We've seen deserters gone rogue, we've seen deserters from the Sky Orders, we've heard their complaints, at this point "war causes widespread rapacity as soldiers go rogue and prey on the countryside" is pretty thoroughly established by the game. But I guess it's nice that Agrias has a chance to personally show what she thinks of this unrighteous behavior. And to some extent, it is fun watching AI-controlled Agrias take the build I spent all game building up for her and wreaking absolute havoc on enemy lines all on her own.
There's not much else to say. Most of our attacks one-shot the opposition. I have Gillian as a Summoner since that's a skillset she lacked, which does limit my option since she doesn't have any Summons unlocked yet so she only uses magic through the medium of Arithmetics, which presents some interesting challenges in finding the exact algorithm to avoid hitting my own units with debuffs or the enemy side with buffs; a lot of the time I end up doing trade-offs like "I can get three of my units Hasted at the cost of also Hasting one or two enemy units," which is honestly a fairly fun bit of gameplay because it's up to me to make these choices and deal with the downsides?
There's a bit of extra dialogue I miss the first go around, but since I'll play it again I'll include it here anyway:
Agrias: "There are people who lack any food at all, and you scorn what you are given? You steal from the poor that you might grow fat! Know you how many hunger and die because of what you do?"
Ninja: "What's it to me how many die?"
Ramza: "It's not your bellies that are empty - it is your souls!"
Agrias: "If you would rob others of the right to live, then you've no claim to it, either!"
Right, I think that makes the stakes more clear - these are Knights who deserted not because of fear for their lives or weariness of battle or because they were starving, but because the life of knight wasn't comfortable enough. They were kept fed, unlike the peasants of Ivalice, but the food was too bland for their taste. They were paid, but they thought the labor too tiresome. With their skill at war, they thought to establish themselves as lords of this small redoubt, living in leisure off the peasantry that surrounds them, taking the fruit of their labor by force.
They thought to make themselves the same as any lord, only without the pretense of legitimacy that Ivalice's society and culture provides to those with the right heritage.
Unfortunately none of our characters make that same logical connection that's implied by the text. Ah, well. Defeating all the deserters is easy, though our reward is of no particular note.
Ramza: "It is times such as these when the people *need* the Orders to protect them."
Agrias: "Ivalice weakens, and so the vultures come to feed. We'll no doubt see more before the end. This strife must be quelled, Ramza - and soon."
It's a simple battle, with some interesting enemy features - notably, on top of the invisibility which I've never seen used by enemies before, the Squires are both equipped with special guns.
Because the real point of this battle is of course endgame loot. That's why it's there! To give you more opportunities to nab rare equipment that's normally only available in like, Beowulf's sidequest and one other place. Just killing everyone is sort of missing the point.
Well, fine. I have been using these Errands to teach Hester some Steal abilities. Let's reload…
Alright, hm. There's one problem with the "steal all the enemy's stuff" plan. Namely? In this battle, Agrias is a Guest Unit, rampaging out of control. Which means, if I want to be able to undertake multiple steal attempts (as the chance of success is low), well…
…I need to put her on a timeout.
I don't know what this says that the last battle of the brief Agrias subplot involves taking out Agrias so you can steal shit from your enemies. It feels somehow perverse.
Well, anyway. We also need to take out all enemies that don't have stuff we want, and then keep alive the enemies that do. It's pretty tricky and involves a lot of fussing about individual disabling moves for individual enemies and we really don't need to do a thorough breakdown of that. Point is: After a couple attempt, we make out with a Glacial Gun for Mustadio and Sasuke's Blade for Hester, a ninja sword to go with her Spellbinder.
And that's the end of this subplot! It was kind of underbaked but hey, at least it's there. And we got some sweet loot out of it.
Sorry about that bump on your head, Agrias. Here, have Cid's Excalibur to make you feel better.
I mean, might as well, right?
The Wicked Deeds of Celebrant Bremondt
Now here's the piece de résistance.
For a while now, we've had a Rumor that I didn't bother mentioning, following the replacement of Lionel's liege lord - that would be Cardinal Delacroix. Delacroix governed the province of Lionel, and was the first one to bite the dust at our hands; perhaps because he was the first, unlike the others, we got rumors tracking the process of appointing a successor. Because Lionel is a religious fief, and was governed by a Cardinal, succession does not pass to a blood heir, but instead to another member of the Church - Celebrant Bremondt, a man known for his "genial disposition and uncompromising pursuit of heretics," a wild combination of phrases to read.
However, there is more to Celebrant Bremondt, which is revealed by checking out Reis's Persona tab after lifting her dragon curse:
Celebrant Bremondt was none other than the one who cursed Reis in the first place! How and why? This whole time it's remained a mystery - because the next step of Beowulf and Reis's quest only unlocks after the events at Mullonde. But now, we can finally head to Lionel, and find out what this is all about.
Beowulf and Reis are looking out on the lands of Lionel from the ruin of some distant tower (this is, in fact, the same map which Dycedarg killed Larg on, though diegetically they're obviously different locations) and reminiscing about their journey.
Reis: "The fields of Lionel unfold on the horizon - the grass and soil of our homeland." [She leans against Beowulf's shoulder.] "Forgive me, Beowulf. For me, you've forfeited so much. You now even bear the heretic's brand. We cannot return home."
Beowulf: [He turns to her.] "There's naught to forgive. 'Twas Bremondt whose deeds were ill, and those I am not of a mind to pardon. I've grown accustomed to this vagrant life. It is not Lionel's fields that I love. So long as you are with me, Reis, I am home."
Beowulf: "We're like to be departing soon. I had best go and see if my help is needed."
[He descends the stairs; as he is about to leave the screen, there's a teleporting sound.]
Reis: [Off-screen] "What do you-? Release me!"
Intensely funny that by now we've heard the "enemy teleporting away" sound effect so many times that it instantly registers as someone teleporting in to abduct Reis, which also means that this teleportation is definitely diegetic, so I guess "enemies teleport in the middle of your camp to abduct party members" is a thing they get to do now that will never be brought up again!
Beowulf hurries back upstairs, but of course Reis is already gone, and in her stead stands Ser Aliste, who is another handsome silver-haired knight dude.
Ser Aliste doesn't know how Beowulf released Reis from her curse, but he extends Celebrant Bremondt's gratitude - which is our first sign that Reis was not meant to receive his curse, some kind of shenanigans occurred here; Aliste knocked her out, and she will awake in the "safety" of Lionel Castle, where Celebrant Bremondt awaits her. We seem dealing with a Frollo Hunchbackofnotredame situation here, with a high-ranking religious official with good PR becoming obsessed with some woman who doesn't love him.
Beowulf threatens to draw steel on Aliste at once if he doesn't return her, and Aliste returns the threat - if he doesn't come back to his men soon, who knows what they might do? If he wants Reis back, his only hope is to head for Lionel Castle. An obvious trap, but we have little other option.
As Aliste departs, Beowulf calls out to him:
Beowulf: "Ser Aliste, wait! What has become of you? You were once my ally, and hers! Why now this?"
It's clear these two men were once friends, but Aliste scoffs dismissively; the bounty on Beowulf's head is large enough to forsake any friendship. It's a remarkably weak answer, almost deliberately disappointing in its venality. Especially as Aliste then tells Beowulf to take care of keeping himself safe - because otherwise he'd lose the bounty, of course.
We are prompted to a save screen and then our battle menu. Beowulf and Reis are both gone from the party, and when we get to form a Squad, it's only with 4 units; like Agrias, Beowulf will be turned to a Guest Unit we don't control for the sake of this battle. Unfortunately, unlike Agrias, I haven't been building up Beowulf into an unstoppable death machine who can clear the battlefield on his own, so… Eh, I'm sure it'll be fine.
I like how by now Ramza has walked into so many traps that he is instantly able to sense that this is one. Which leads to the extremely funny outcome that he and Beowulf simply do not consent to walking through the wide open door, forcing Ser Aliste to come out and tell us how totally not tilted he is that we avoided his obvious trap:
Aliste: "Beowulf, at last! I'd near grown tired of waiting."
Beowulf: "Aliste!"
Aliste: "I thought to ease your passage within, but I see my hospitality is met with scorn. No matter. I'd not planned to let you pass beyond here."
[Several combat units appear behind the door, forming a perfect ambush around the other side of the door where we pointedly are not.]
Aliste: "The effects should have taken hold by now. Let us treat with steel!"
[Battle begins]
That last line, 'the effects should have taken hold by now,' is just as strange in context as it is without, and clearly draws attention to itself. Is Aliste referring to some kind of poison administered to someone? It's unclear and we're meant to wonder.
Aliste is a Templar like Beowulf, lv 48 and with Iaido, Shirahado, Safeguard and Master Teleportation; considerable HP, high attack power and passive Protect from Save the Queen, full Genji equipment that we can't steal and a Ribbon that grants him immunity to all status effects; he is in many ways similar to Elmdore. The two Ninjas on his side also ensure great offensive power if they're allowed to attack, but we move first, so we can take care of them ideally before they have a chance to threaten us. The Archers positioned on the rampart are in a strong position to attack downwards while enjoying cover from my own ranged attacks - except ones that ignore elevation. Put it all together and…
Hester takes out one Ninja, Agrias blasts one Archer, two enemies down. The second Ninja can't find an adjacent square it can reach to hit Hester (which would likely OHKO her, so that's good) so instead opts to throw an item at her, dealing damage but proccing Dragonheart; I have Ramza step up and use Iaido to cast Protect and Shell on himself and Hester and bar the gate.
Then Aliste uses his teleportation to move into the back of our formation, targeting Beowulf with a 162-damage simple attack. It looks like our man wants a duel; fine by me.
Beowulf: "Lay aside your sword! I've no wish to fight you!"
Aliste: "Ha! Have you lost your edge in all these years of chasing after that girl?"
Beowulf then moves behind Aliste, but his sword blow is parried by the Templar's shield. On the other side, the Time Mage descends next to the remaining Ninja to charge up a spell. This proves unfortunate:
A Hallowed Bolt on the Ninja's tile hits both him and the TMM, taking both out in a single blow. That leaves only the Archer; I can just leave Agrias to finish him off and bring back my units around Aliste. Of course, the wily bastard evades with Teleport, continuing to target Beowulf with his attacks.
Aliste: "Are you truly the same knight once hailed as Lionel's finest? My contract ends with your last breath. Stay not your hand - I shall not stay mine."
Beowulf: "Where gone is the noble Ser Aliste - the knight I once entrusted with my life?"
Aliste: "That man has long since passed!"
*teleports behind u*
That blow is enough to bring Beowulf into critical range, and he attempts a defiant strike, but is blocked by Aliste's frustratingly effective parry. Unfortunately, Beowulf's AI assesses the threat and decides to withdraw behind allied lines, which somehow ruins the effect of the dramatic duel. Ah, well.
Hester's first blow is parried, again, but the second find its mark; brought down to critical, Aliste goes down to one knee.
Aliste: "Mayhap your edge is not lost after all."
Beowulf: "We've fought enough, Aliste! Will you not end this madness?"
Aliste: "It's not over. Not yet…"
On the other side of the gate, the Archer joins Agrias's corpse pile.
No, seriously, look at it.
It's Ramza who seals the deal, Sanguine Blossom finishing off the last of Aliste's HP.
Aliste: "I am… defeated."
Beowulf: "Aliste!"
Aliste: "Dwell not on this, Beowulf. My days were already at an end. *chuckle* Even the noble Ser Aliste cannot best malady."
Beowulf: "What?"
Aliste: "I'd not die… in a sickbed, succumbed to weakness and… and infirmity."
Aliste: "What… what are you doing? Go! Go… and save Reis! She awaits you within. Take her… and your freedom. I die now… fulfilled. Fare-well, Beowulf… my lord…"
[He falls.]
Beowulf: "You fool!"
And so the truth is revealed - Aliste was dying of sickness, and rather than allow it to take him in his bed, he willingly conspired in a plan to abduct Reis just so he could force Beowulf to kill him in single combat, while in truth hoping for his success and Reis's freedom. The 'effects' he brought up earlier were most likely some kind of drug meant to allow him to ignore the symptoms of his sickness long enough to have his final duel.
It's interesting how 'died in bed of malady' is something that's come up a few times - often with undertones of deceit; Barbaneth died in bed of malady (but was secretly poisoned), the King died in bed of malady (but might, perhaps, have been poisoned by parties opposed to the queen), Cardinal Delacroix 'died in bed of malady' (he turned into a monster and we stabbed him until he exploded), and now we have a character who, faced with this same prospect which is so often a lie, decides to drug himself and betray his friend just so he can die standing with a sword in his hands. There's something there, about the way Ivalician culture treats sickness and death by wasting, but I'm not sure if it fully coheres into a real idea.
Cut for image count.
The Story So Far: The War of the Lions is nearing its end. Nearly all the great lords of Ivalice have fallen; the White Lion and the Black Lion are no more, House Beoulve has fallen, and nothing stands in the way of Delita's ambition and Ovelia's restoration to the throne - nothing, that is, save for Folmarv, the last of the Lucavi, who now hurries to Orbonne Monastery where our story began to summon his master…
But that is not for today.
Today, we're doing side quests.
This is really not that different from the traditional "end of game round-up" most Final Fantasy games have had, except in all the ways that it is. For one thing, we don't have an airship; that means every movement between nodes has the risk of a random encounter, and I am getting tired of spending ten minutes blowing through Chocobos just to check a Rumor board two provinces over. For another, due to the way cities are (not) presented, a lot of checking for sidequests is just moving from node to node checking the Rumor board, then the Errand board, then trying to figure out which Rumors are unique to this town and whether they present actionable sidequest information. The shops now have their endgame equipment available (and have had for a while), so there's not much point to visiting them either, and it's not like there are ambient NPCs with updated dialogue to talk to. The Rumors themselves mostly take their place, and these haven't really updated in the last several hours. But checking that they haven't updated requires killing so many skeletons and chocobos moving through Ivalice, it's tedious.
Or you can just ask people in your thread to point you to the specific places you need to go to find the quests. That's a better idea.
Some Final Errands
I'd like to open this post with a sort of lightning round of my favorite Errands. Which is a bit weird to say, because the actual process of doing Errands is always the same: I shove Hadrian, Hester and Gillian (Osric technically exists but he's lv 17, sorry Osric) into the Errand Dimension, I spend two to three weeks running between nodes hoping not to trigger random encounters, and then I get them back with a mission report. It's the mission report that I care about here.
The thing is, several of these Errands actually tell stories that advance as you fulfill them; but they're drowned in a sea of so many "salvage another ship" and "restore another mine" standalones that it can be hard to keep track.
Do you remember Count Minimas? I touched on him very briefly last update. We've had two Errands with him so far; the first time, the man couldn't open his own vault because he had stuffed it so full of bags of gold that it jammed the mechanism. Our heroes managed to unjam the door, and they departed reflected on how Count Minimas is such a kind and charitable soul, a true man of the people and one of the few hopes of forthrightness in a realm as corrupt as Ivalice. The second time, Minimas had installed solid gold fittings on the door to his mansion and it was now too heavy to open, so he needed us to pry it open; our errand runners once again left thinking about how the philanthropic count was one of the few hopes for this corrupt country. Now, Count Minimas calls on us again, as his door has been replaced with a mimic! Our heroes bravely slay the beast, and return…
Oh my god! Count Minimas was corrupt? Incredible. Who could have possibly seen this coming.
There's an Errand where the characters spend eight hours locked in deadly battle against a chimera, a monster from legend thought long extinct, which could only have resulted from dark sorceries, leaving a sinister mystery in its wake… Until another Errand to put down a pet transformed into a monster reveals that it was an accident on the part of a local noble girl who found a magic book in her library and had started throwing around spells she didn't understand. Oops.
Some of the Errands also lean towards the quietly tragic, even if by nature of their format it's very understated:
Sometimes your only reward for an Errand is sadness!
Before we leave Errands behind us for the final time, I'd like to take a brief moment and do a sort of lightning round of cool, interesting things that I found in them that never really had a place to fit in the update - all this incidental worldbuilding that's hidden in the reports of completed missions.
Treasure Dives
I've mentioned salvage expeditions being an extremely common (and fairly repetitive in its reports) type of Errand. One thing I should mention is that, in-setting, they're a form of… Entertainment? We get a few mentions of large-scale salvage expeditions being organized by major trading companies, and people pay an entry fee to get to participate in a kind of free for all "dive for treasure" adventure. It's a widely-enjoyed activity practiced by children and the elderly, including some who come in far from landlocked region to take part in them.
The World Tree
In one of the many mining missions we undertook, our party ventured beyond a mountain range, and from there, they beheld an enormous tree, larger than they'd ever seen before; they wondered if it was the World Tree itself. This seems confirmed by an artifact reward, the Yggdrasil Mistletoe, a parasitic shrub that feeds on the bark of the World Tree.
The Lake Monster
There is a Lake called Lake Poescas. Our characters were dredging its depth for lost ruins, when they witnessed a rare sighting of a sea dragon. That dragon is called… Poessie. That is all.
Upon the Plateau
"The Lenalia Plateau is thought to be home to demons and all manners of evil spirit. A line from a local legend reads, "and a demon descended upon the high plateau of Lenalia, and the world was plunged into darkness." However, we witnessed only a series of quiet, rolling hills with no apparent relation to the cursed land of legend. And yet as we left, we did feel a strange chill." I love these little mundane yet ever so slightly eerie vignettes.
Assorted Adventurers
In many Errands, our characters team up with a cast of adventurers who are only ever mentioned there - the architect Joshul who helped them navigate an ancient labyrinth, the wilderness-tracking Vaschons, the adventurer Lamzen who is renowned on the mainland and came to Ivalice to explore the desert, or a mysterious ninja who aids our characters in apprehending a notorious purse snatcher.
It's really kind of a fascinating way to build up the world of the story under the limitations of the game. Anyway, that's about all for Errands.
Agrias's Closure
I have complicated feelings about this one.
To unlock this, we must head to Zeltennia Castle, which is a fair distance out of our way. Zeltennia, if you'll recall, was the seat of Duke Goltanna and the Order of the Southern Sky, the place where Princess Ovelia is being kept.
And it's on Princess Ovelia that we open.
Ovelia sits in prayer in the garden, and Agrias enters.
Ovelia: "Agrias!?"
[Agrias kneels; Lavian and Alicia enter after her.]
Agrias: "Pray forgive the late hour of our coming."
Ovelia: "Oh, Agrias! Gods be praised, you're alive! I'd no way of reaching you, and I'd feared the worst. Such a weight is lifted! Please, rise."
[Agrias rises.]
Agrias: "Forgive me. I gave cause for needless worry. Ser Ramza aided me. I travel with him even now."
Ovelia: "Then I owe Ramza a great debt of gratitude."
Ovelia: "You'll return to me now, won't you, Agrias? I need your sword and shield now more than ever. Your counsel I sorely miss as well. Please, Agrias, you will stay, yes?"
[Agrias lowers her head sadly, then looks at Ovelia again.]
Agrias: "My apologies, Your Majesty. I cannot tarry here, though it pains me to leave. There are nefarious forces afoot, who would take the helm of Ivalice and steer her to the doom of all. A darkness falls upon the realm, my lady, and it is but a matter of time before we are consumed by it. To turn a blind eye to this is to forsake the hallowed oath I swore: To defend this kingdom at peril of my life. My sword is sworn to you as well, and I mean for it to serve. Your safety requires that this plot be stopped. It is not lightly that I abandon duty, but only for the love I bear you and our kingdom. I can but pray that you forgive me, Highness."
[Ovelia takes a step back, lowering her gaze to the ground.]
Ovelia: "I… I see. But-"
Delita's Voice: "You're fond of this place, aren't you, Ovelia?"
[Delita enters.]
Agrias I'm begging you you have the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever
Delita: "Well met. Agrias, was it not?"
Agrias: "Unmannered dog! How dare you address Her Majesty by name!?"
Ovelia: "Agrias, it's all right."
Agrias: "But, my lady-!"
Ovelia: "It's fine. Pay it no heed."
Agrias: "If that is Your Majesty's wish…" [She turns to Delita and gives him a slight nod.] " Would that I had not to beg favors of such as you, but fate is not so kind. Responsibility for the well-being of Her Majesty the Princess rests in my hand. But at present, my hands toil toward another purpose. It is not without reluctance that I put my faith in you, but the choice is made for me. Please, let no harm come to Lady Ovelia!"
Delita: "Put your mind at ease. I will keep her safe."
Agrias: "I shall trust your words. Should aught befall Her Highness, know that my vengeance, and your death, will be swift."
Ovelia: "Agrias!"
[Agrias turns to Ovelia and approaches her; she takes Ovelia's hand and puts something in it.]
Agrias: "My lady. I want you to carry this, though I hope with all my heart you need not use it."
Delita: "Having a knife for protection may not be a bad idea."
[Ovelia bows her head.]
Ovelia: "Thank you, Agrias."
[Agrias steps back; she, Lavian and Alicia all kneel again.]
Agrias: "And now, I must take my leave."
Ovelia: "Father watch over you."
Agrias: "I promise this: When all is done, I shall return to you. Until such time, pray be safe."
Ovelia: "I shall await your return."
Agrias: "Fare-well, Majesty. And gods be with you." [She stands.] "Lavian, Alicia! With me!"
[They stand, and leave.]
Delita stands watching them leave, but Ovelia lowers her head sadly, with the shadow falling over her.
Yeah, no wonder people ship these two.
This scene is, of course, a WotL addition, and I'm torn about it. On the one hand, it's kind of a very flat scene. There isn't really much depth there; Agrias just appears in front of Ovelia, tells her that she's alive and fine and with Ramza but can't return to her side until the Lucavi threat is addressed, then turns to Delita and goes "I hate this but I entrust her care to you" while still cleary not liking him, and then she's gone. It's the bare minimum; the character beat is being serviced without any frills whatsoever. Except for the gift of the knife - Ovelia being a princess in a castle whose closest protector is a knight, she could have any weapon she wants; the knife is meaningful because it is Agrias who gives it to her, because it comes with a plea to use her if she needs it, a reminder that Ovelia may have (and is, implicitly, permitted) to defend herself with her own hands in the absence of her protector, and because it says that Agrias does not trust Delita so far that she would leave Ovelia without a means to defend herself in an emergency - from Delita, if need be.
I did briefly ask, "why doesn't Agrias try to kill Delita on the spot," but then I reviewed the course of events and… Agrias doesn't know that Delita was involved in Ovelia's capture at Lionel? The last time they saw each other was at Zeirchele Falls, then Cardinal Delacroix betrayed them while they were guests under his roof, and Delita later took Ovelia to Zeltennia. Agrias would probably have learned (from Ramza if nothing else) that Delita was involved in the whole scenario in some capacity, but not the precise details, because Ramza doesn't know them either. And since, by this point in the story, Delita is winning the war, Ovelia is safe in Zeltennia, and she seems well-inclined towards her, plus Delita had told to Ramza (who would have told Agrias) that he plans on giving Ovelia her own kingdom, she probably has more complicated and nuanced feelings that "I'm going to kill this asshole and get Ovelia back" at this point.
At the same time, while this is a very sauceless way to do this character beat, it has the merit of doing the character beat at all, holy shit. It took until War of the Lions for Agrias to have a scene of reuniting with Ovelia, enquiring about her safety and explaining her motives for staying away? Unbelievable. I'm looking back and the fact that Agrias's last line of dialogue would have been back in chapter 2 without Agrias's Birthday and this, and it's legitimately an insane way to write characters. Yeah, this is a pretty boring way to do that scene, but it gives Agrias and Ovelia A Moment, and that's really all they need.
Still think Agrias should have decked Delita in the face for Orbonne, tho.
This isn't actually the end of that particular plot beat, though the second half is wholly separated from the first. First, we must head to Gariland and hit up the tavern, where we find a new Rumor: Disorder in the Order. According to it, since the loss of Duke Larg and the Beoulves, the Order of the Northern Sky has been left leaderless, causing dissent which ultimately led to a group of knights deserting and setting up base at Brigand's Den to terrorize the nearby towns.
Well, time to put them all to the sword, I guess.
Two of the deserters - this Squire and the Ninja are having an argument; their rations are gone, striking carts on the road is doing little to feed them, the Ninja wants to outright sack a village. The other thinks it's going too far, but the Ninja appeals to their mutual sense of being wronged - they were at the front lines at Fort Besselat, while the Beoulves ran and hid; high time for them to simply take what they need. And if other members of the Order show up to bring them to heel, well, they'll simply bribe them away. The Squire likes the sound of that, and they agree - just in time for us to arrive.
Ramza tells them to surrender and they may keep their lives, the Ninja leader laughs it off and tells him to be gone but throws in a wild sexist comment about leaving "that wench" (Agrias) for them. More threats of sexual violence, great. Agrias is, of course, not particularly happy about this, and battle begins.
There are some interesting mechanical aspects to this battle, such as our first invisible opponents. Invisible doesn't appear to restrict us from targeting or hitting opponents, rather it guarantees a hit on the first attack made by an invisible enemy, like a one-use Concentration. An annoying feature of this battle, though, is that Agrias is back to being a guest unit, acting on her own.
Divine Ruination takes out a Squire in the back line.
The enemy Ninja is a powerful offensive unit; I make the mistake of advancing Hester early, but she falls short of attack range (except Throw, but I don't have good Throwable item), and the Ninja goes immediately after and takes her out.
Ramza: "Why lower yourselves to this? Did you not join the Order to protect the people?"
Ninja: "Are you daft, boy? We joined the Order to make a knight's living! And what a living it's been - driven on like beasts of burden, denied our pay and even proper rations! Would that honor flavored soup, I might have use for it. But I've had my fill of boiled lentils."
Honestly, this is retreading old grounds. We've seen deserters gone rogue, we've seen deserters from the Sky Orders, we've heard their complaints, at this point "war causes widespread rapacity as soldiers go rogue and prey on the countryside" is pretty thoroughly established by the game. But I guess it's nice that Agrias has a chance to personally show what she thinks of this unrighteous behavior. And to some extent, it is fun watching AI-controlled Agrias take the build I spent all game building up for her and wreaking absolute havoc on enemy lines all on her own.
There's not much else to say. Most of our attacks one-shot the opposition. I have Gillian as a Summoner since that's a skillset she lacked, which does limit my option since she doesn't have any Summons unlocked yet so she only uses magic through the medium of Arithmetics, which presents some interesting challenges in finding the exact algorithm to avoid hitting my own units with debuffs or the enemy side with buffs; a lot of the time I end up doing trade-offs like "I can get three of my units Hasted at the cost of also Hasting one or two enemy units," which is honestly a fairly fun bit of gameplay because it's up to me to make these choices and deal with the downsides?
There's a bit of extra dialogue I miss the first go around, but since I'll play it again I'll include it here anyway:
Agrias: "There are people who lack any food at all, and you scorn what you are given? You steal from the poor that you might grow fat! Know you how many hunger and die because of what you do?"
Ninja: "What's it to me how many die?"
Ramza: "It's not your bellies that are empty - it is your souls!"
Agrias: "If you would rob others of the right to live, then you've no claim to it, either!"
Right, I think that makes the stakes more clear - these are Knights who deserted not because of fear for their lives or weariness of battle or because they were starving, but because the life of knight wasn't comfortable enough. They were kept fed, unlike the peasants of Ivalice, but the food was too bland for their taste. They were paid, but they thought the labor too tiresome. With their skill at war, they thought to establish themselves as lords of this small redoubt, living in leisure off the peasantry that surrounds them, taking the fruit of their labor by force.
They thought to make themselves the same as any lord, only without the pretense of legitimacy that Ivalice's society and culture provides to those with the right heritage.
Unfortunately none of our characters make that same logical connection that's implied by the text. Ah, well. Defeating all the deserters is easy, though our reward is of no particular note.
Ramza: "It is times such as these when the people *need* the Orders to protect them."
Agrias: "Ivalice weakens, and so the vultures come to feed. We'll no doubt see more before the end. This strife must be quelled, Ramza - and soon."
It's a simple battle, with some interesting enemy features - notably, on top of the invisibility which I've never seen used by enemies before, the Squires are both equipped with special guns.
Because the real point of this battle is of course endgame loot. That's why it's there! To give you more opportunities to nab rare equipment that's normally only available in like, Beowulf's sidequest and one other place. Just killing everyone is sort of missing the point.
Well, fine. I have been using these Errands to teach Hester some Steal abilities. Let's reload…
Alright, hm. There's one problem with the "steal all the enemy's stuff" plan. Namely? In this battle, Agrias is a Guest Unit, rampaging out of control. Which means, if I want to be able to undertake multiple steal attempts (as the chance of success is low), well…
…I need to put her on a timeout.
I don't know what this says that the last battle of the brief Agrias subplot involves taking out Agrias so you can steal shit from your enemies. It feels somehow perverse.
Well, anyway. We also need to take out all enemies that don't have stuff we want, and then keep alive the enemies that do. It's pretty tricky and involves a lot of fussing about individual disabling moves for individual enemies and we really don't need to do a thorough breakdown of that. Point is: After a couple attempt, we make out with a Glacial Gun for Mustadio and Sasuke's Blade for Hester, a ninja sword to go with her Spellbinder.
And that's the end of this subplot! It was kind of underbaked but hey, at least it's there. And we got some sweet loot out of it.
Sorry about that bump on your head, Agrias. Here, have Cid's Excalibur to make you feel better.
I mean, might as well, right?
The Wicked Deeds of Celebrant Bremondt
Now here's the piece de résistance.
For a while now, we've had a Rumor that I didn't bother mentioning, following the replacement of Lionel's liege lord - that would be Cardinal Delacroix. Delacroix governed the province of Lionel, and was the first one to bite the dust at our hands; perhaps because he was the first, unlike the others, we got rumors tracking the process of appointing a successor. Because Lionel is a religious fief, and was governed by a Cardinal, succession does not pass to a blood heir, but instead to another member of the Church - Celebrant Bremondt, a man known for his "genial disposition and uncompromising pursuit of heretics," a wild combination of phrases to read.
However, there is more to Celebrant Bremondt, which is revealed by checking out Reis's Persona tab after lifting her dragon curse:
Celebrant Bremondt was none other than the one who cursed Reis in the first place! How and why? This whole time it's remained a mystery - because the next step of Beowulf and Reis's quest only unlocks after the events at Mullonde. But now, we can finally head to Lionel, and find out what this is all about.
Beowulf and Reis are looking out on the lands of Lionel from the ruin of some distant tower (this is, in fact, the same map which Dycedarg killed Larg on, though diegetically they're obviously different locations) and reminiscing about their journey.
Reis: "The fields of Lionel unfold on the horizon - the grass and soil of our homeland." [She leans against Beowulf's shoulder.] "Forgive me, Beowulf. For me, you've forfeited so much. You now even bear the heretic's brand. We cannot return home."
Beowulf: [He turns to her.] "There's naught to forgive. 'Twas Bremondt whose deeds were ill, and those I am not of a mind to pardon. I've grown accustomed to this vagrant life. It is not Lionel's fields that I love. So long as you are with me, Reis, I am home."
Beowulf: "We're like to be departing soon. I had best go and see if my help is needed."
[He descends the stairs; as he is about to leave the screen, there's a teleporting sound.]
Reis: [Off-screen] "What do you-? Release me!"
Intensely funny that by now we've heard the "enemy teleporting away" sound effect so many times that it instantly registers as someone teleporting in to abduct Reis, which also means that this teleportation is definitely diegetic, so I guess "enemies teleport in the middle of your camp to abduct party members" is a thing they get to do now that will never be brought up again!
Beowulf hurries back upstairs, but of course Reis is already gone, and in her stead stands Ser Aliste, who is another handsome silver-haired knight dude.
Ser Aliste doesn't know how Beowulf released Reis from her curse, but he extends Celebrant Bremondt's gratitude - which is our first sign that Reis was not meant to receive his curse, some kind of shenanigans occurred here; Aliste knocked her out, and she will awake in the "safety" of Lionel Castle, where Celebrant Bremondt awaits her. We seem dealing with a Frollo Hunchbackofnotredame situation here, with a high-ranking religious official with good PR becoming obsessed with some woman who doesn't love him.
Beowulf threatens to draw steel on Aliste at once if he doesn't return her, and Aliste returns the threat - if he doesn't come back to his men soon, who knows what they might do? If he wants Reis back, his only hope is to head for Lionel Castle. An obvious trap, but we have little other option.
As Aliste departs, Beowulf calls out to him:
Beowulf: "Ser Aliste, wait! What has become of you? You were once my ally, and hers! Why now this?"
It's clear these two men were once friends, but Aliste scoffs dismissively; the bounty on Beowulf's head is large enough to forsake any friendship. It's a remarkably weak answer, almost deliberately disappointing in its venality. Especially as Aliste then tells Beowulf to take care of keeping himself safe - because otherwise he'd lose the bounty, of course.
We are prompted to a save screen and then our battle menu. Beowulf and Reis are both gone from the party, and when we get to form a Squad, it's only with 4 units; like Agrias, Beowulf will be turned to a Guest Unit we don't control for the sake of this battle. Unfortunately, unlike Agrias, I haven't been building up Beowulf into an unstoppable death machine who can clear the battlefield on his own, so… Eh, I'm sure it'll be fine.
I like how by now Ramza has walked into so many traps that he is instantly able to sense that this is one. Which leads to the extremely funny outcome that he and Beowulf simply do not consent to walking through the wide open door, forcing Ser Aliste to come out and tell us how totally not tilted he is that we avoided his obvious trap:
Aliste: "Beowulf, at last! I'd near grown tired of waiting."
Beowulf: "Aliste!"
Aliste: "I thought to ease your passage within, but I see my hospitality is met with scorn. No matter. I'd not planned to let you pass beyond here."
[Several combat units appear behind the door, forming a perfect ambush around the other side of the door where we pointedly are not.]
Aliste: "The effects should have taken hold by now. Let us treat with steel!"
[Battle begins]
That last line, 'the effects should have taken hold by now,' is just as strange in context as it is without, and clearly draws attention to itself. Is Aliste referring to some kind of poison administered to someone? It's unclear and we're meant to wonder.
Aliste is a Templar like Beowulf, lv 48 and with Iaido, Shirahado, Safeguard and Master Teleportation; considerable HP, high attack power and passive Protect from Save the Queen, full Genji equipment that we can't steal and a Ribbon that grants him immunity to all status effects; he is in many ways similar to Elmdore. The two Ninjas on his side also ensure great offensive power if they're allowed to attack, but we move first, so we can take care of them ideally before they have a chance to threaten us. The Archers positioned on the rampart are in a strong position to attack downwards while enjoying cover from my own ranged attacks - except ones that ignore elevation. Put it all together and…
Hester takes out one Ninja, Agrias blasts one Archer, two enemies down. The second Ninja can't find an adjacent square it can reach to hit Hester (which would likely OHKO her, so that's good) so instead opts to throw an item at her, dealing damage but proccing Dragonheart; I have Ramza step up and use Iaido to cast Protect and Shell on himself and Hester and bar the gate.
Then Aliste uses his teleportation to move into the back of our formation, targeting Beowulf with a 162-damage simple attack. It looks like our man wants a duel; fine by me.
Beowulf: "Lay aside your sword! I've no wish to fight you!"
Aliste: "Ha! Have you lost your edge in all these years of chasing after that girl?"
Beowulf then moves behind Aliste, but his sword blow is parried by the Templar's shield. On the other side, the Time Mage descends next to the remaining Ninja to charge up a spell. This proves unfortunate:
A Hallowed Bolt on the Ninja's tile hits both him and the TMM, taking both out in a single blow. That leaves only the Archer; I can just leave Agrias to finish him off and bring back my units around Aliste. Of course, the wily bastard evades with Teleport, continuing to target Beowulf with his attacks.
Aliste: "Are you truly the same knight once hailed as Lionel's finest? My contract ends with your last breath. Stay not your hand - I shall not stay mine."
Beowulf: "Where gone is the noble Ser Aliste - the knight I once entrusted with my life?"
Aliste: "That man has long since passed!"
*teleports behind u*
That blow is enough to bring Beowulf into critical range, and he attempts a defiant strike, but is blocked by Aliste's frustratingly effective parry. Unfortunately, Beowulf's AI assesses the threat and decides to withdraw behind allied lines, which somehow ruins the effect of the dramatic duel. Ah, well.
Hester's first blow is parried, again, but the second find its mark; brought down to critical, Aliste goes down to one knee.
Aliste: "Mayhap your edge is not lost after all."
Beowulf: "We've fought enough, Aliste! Will you not end this madness?"
Aliste: "It's not over. Not yet…"
On the other side of the gate, the Archer joins Agrias's corpse pile.
No, seriously, look at it.
It's Ramza who seals the deal, Sanguine Blossom finishing off the last of Aliste's HP.
Aliste: "I am… defeated."
Beowulf: "Aliste!"
Aliste: "Dwell not on this, Beowulf. My days were already at an end. *chuckle* Even the noble Ser Aliste cannot best malady."
Beowulf: "What?"
Aliste: "I'd not die… in a sickbed, succumbed to weakness and… and infirmity."
Aliste: "What… what are you doing? Go! Go… and save Reis! She awaits you within. Take her… and your freedom. I die now… fulfilled. Fare-well, Beowulf… my lord…"
[He falls.]
Beowulf: "You fool!"
And so the truth is revealed - Aliste was dying of sickness, and rather than allow it to take him in his bed, he willingly conspired in a plan to abduct Reis just so he could force Beowulf to kill him in single combat, while in truth hoping for his success and Reis's freedom. The 'effects' he brought up earlier were most likely some kind of drug meant to allow him to ignore the symptoms of his sickness long enough to have his final duel.
It's interesting how 'died in bed of malady' is something that's come up a few times - often with undertones of deceit; Barbaneth died in bed of malady (but was secretly poisoned), the King died in bed of malady (but might, perhaps, have been poisoned by parties opposed to the queen), Cardinal Delacroix 'died in bed of malady' (he turned into a monster and we stabbed him until he exploded), and now we have a character who, faced with this same prospect which is so often a lie, decides to drug himself and betray his friend just so he can die standing with a sword in his hands. There's something there, about the way Ivalician culture treats sickness and death by wasting, but I'm not sure if it fully coheres into a real idea.
Cut for image count.
Final Fantasy Tactics, Part 22.B: Agrias's Closure, Beowulf and Reis's Closure, Midlight's Deep
New
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Like Fire, Hellfire, This Fire In My Skin
Alright. We must now live with the consequences of Aliste's pro gamer move and save Reis from Cardinal Bremondt. We do get a reward out of this - while Aliste's equipment could not be stolen, we are rewarded with the Genji Armor as a trophy upon victory, and we get a save screen and party screen in which to equip it.
It's the best armor in the game by HP numbers but I am genuinely not sure that +150 HP beats a lower HP count with special immunities or stat boosts; the Mirage Vest grants only +120 HP but also +1 Speed and immunity to Sleep, Poison and Stone, which seems stronger.
All of Bremondt's support units are female, which is probably saying something about him as a character, but it's arguable what.
Cardinal Bremondt is pacing back and forth rapidly, clearly nervous; he knows Beowulf is coming, and he's afraid. When one of his soldiers enters and tells him the gate has been breached, he reacts by starting visibly in fright. And not only have we breached the gate, but "a great number of [their] troops have fallen comatose. We know not why. We fear them drugged."
…oh, never mind then, "the effects should have taken hold by now" was referring to Aliste drugging the garrison to allow us passage instead, not to him dosing up on meth to fight his way past the cancer. That is markedly less cool, even if it's more useful to us.
Bremondt has a total freakout, playing out a specific 'shaking' animation and pose for the rest of the conversation. The Ninja says their remaining soldiers are engaging the enemy, but these are no ordinary soldiers, and they will not be held long.
This is, of course, the precise moment we enter the Oratory.
Look at his portrait. Just look at this greasy motherfucker.
Beowulf: "Bremondt! I come for Reis. I shall have her relinquished at once!"
Bremondt: [He covers his hand with his face.] "B-Beowulf! N-no! C-come no closer! K-kill them! Kill them all! You'll… you'll have whatever reward you wish! Gil - or… or jewels! Wealth enough to… to last you all your days!"
[The units all turn to look at one another, then back to us.]
Beowulf: "Reis… I'll soon see you safe."
[OBJECTIVE: DEFEAT BREMONDT!]
Yeah, Bremondt is not going to be one of the cool Tactics antagonists. He is one of the most pathetic opponents we've had, just a cringing, terrified wet mop of a person. At lv 51 and with powerful unique equipment available (all of it protected by Safeguard), he will nonetheless largely content himself with casting Arise on his support units while fleeing from direct battle, as appropriate to his general vibe.
But Bremondt is not what interests us here.
One of the enemy Samurai wields the Masamune. We only Masamune we saw before was Elmdore, and his was protected by innate Safeguard and could not be stolen. This is our true objective. Because we are unlikely to bother acquiring the true ultimate katana, this will be Ramza's final Iaido skill, and this battle will not be considered a victory until we've succeeded.
Luckily, Hester has been studying Thief skills while out on Errands.
But before that, let's open up on a huge disappointment.
It turns out that elemental guns like the Glacial Gun we just gave to Mustadio sacrifice the main appeal of guns, their fixed damage. Instead, guns have a random chance to use their 1st tier, 2nd tier, or 3d tier spell, with 1st tier having the highest chance of triggering, and being affected by Faith (both Mustadio's and the opponent's). So most of the time, they suck!
Isn't it sad, Mustadio?
No matter. Hester moves up, takes out one Knight, Ramza follows and uses Doomed Aspirations to take out the other. That leaves two Samurai and two Mystics, and Beowulf's turn.
Beowulf: "Will you not accept the truth, Bremondt!? Reis does not love you, nor ever will she!"
Bremondt: "N-no! That's… that's not true! Reis is but deceived! It is you… your lies that blind her heart! When you are gone, it will all be different! There's… there's naught you can do that I cannot. I can buy her aught and all she wishes. She'll want for nothing!"
I don't really have anything to say about Bremondt. He's the cringy incel priest, he turned the thunder-breathing dragon-blooded Reis into a damsel in distress off-screen, whatever. It's a very generic story beat.
There's perhaps… something vaguely uncomfortable in the fact that here we have a story beat entirely about patriarchal violence towards women (abducted and fought over by men as conquests, though of course Beowulf is the good guy and so makes it a point to say that Reis belongs to herself, not him, and his death would not change her choices), but because Bremondt surrounds himself with female units, in order to save Reis, we have to fight through, and presumably kill, several more women in the service of the patriarchal figure. I don't really know what to make of that.
Once the Ninjas are out of the way, I have Gillian cast a Disable algorithm calculated to hit Bremondt, one Samurai and one Mystic. Bremondt is immune to all status effects thanks to his Ribbon, but the goal is mainly to shut down the other units while Hester gets to work. Her odds of stealing from the front on a non-incapacitated Samurai are only 23%, however, so this fails at first; I take another turn taking out the Samurai who isn't carrying a Masamune before trying again.
Beowulf: "'Tis your mind that is deceived, you who deceive it! Love is not a thing for goods or gil exchanged! Reis would never open her heart to a man such as you! My living or dying plays no part in it!"
Bremondt: "You… you cannot fool me! You do not… You do not know her as I do! Reis is mine! My own! I will not surrender her to you!"
Beowulf: "Your notion of love is one of control and possession. Such a thing is not love! Reis freely took the curse you meant for me, though she knew what it might entail. For her, I would fain do the same. That is what it means to love. And it is something you will never know."
Bremondt: "No! It is you - you and that vile tongue! I need only silence it, and we can live together in bliss!"
Bremondt attempts to cast Arise on one of his Ninjas, and whiffs. As much as I hate that mechanic, it is hilarious to see that it can happen to our opponents as well.
We do get a brief 'ouch' moment when the Masamune Samurai reminds us that enemies can, in fact, use Iaido and hits Ramza and Hester with Cloudsea Curse. However, she's a generic Samurai, instead of the unholy MA-optimized monster Squire I made Ramza, so she suffers the Samurai's characteristic "MA ability in a PA growth class" issue and doesn't really do much damage, and now…
Score! We got the Masamune. That's gonna be a wrap, folks. Unless… One of these Mystics has the Chantage perfume, you say? The Accessory that grants permanent Reraise to its unit?
Alright, let's get a little greedy.
Didn't even take long.
Bremondt does manage to bring back the other Samurai while we were busy thieving, though. It still works out - Beowulf takes out the second Samurai, Gillian uses Arithmetics to heal herself and friendly units, Ramza's Iaido takes out the resurrected Samurai, and with only one Mystic left, everyone corners Bremondt at the back of the Cathedral to finish him off.
…whaddayamean, "Power of the Dark."
Oh… Wait… If Bremondt was the one who cast a curse meant to turn Beowulf into a dragon who would lose his humanity… Then logically…
…ah.
Bremondt has become the Dark Dragon. Like Lucavi opponents, this beast's status page is unreadable, and its LV, Exp, HP, MP, and CT gauges are all marked ???.
Whatever its true stats, it is incredibly resilient to magic. Mustadio gets the 'honors' of being the first character to act after the transformation, and he fires his Glacial Gun for 17 damage. Now, this is of course, in part merely the curse of being Mustadio. But even when Ramza goes next, his Doomed Aspirations do a mere 216 damage, way below his normal damage - and Iaido isn't affected by Faith. It's clear that Dark Dragon Bremondt is rocking not just an abysmal Faith rating, but also Arcane Defense. Magic will avail us little here.
Jesus Christ, even Holy is not breaking the triple-digit damage.
I fired an Arithmetics Holy that would hit both Bremondt and Gillian, hoping the damage of her strongest spell would offset the self-inflicted KO. That was a mistake. Holy does nearly no damage at all to the Dragon, while taking out Gillian instantly. Fortunately, Mustadio is quick to throw her a Phoenix Down, but in the meantime…
Bremondt's Ice Breath brings down Hester in one hit, freeing the path for the dragon to relocate near the edge of the dais. Thankfully, Hester had Dragonheart up, so she follows the beast and stabs it with a double attack for a hefty 448 damage… And immediately eats Counter to the face.
She goes down again.
It's not going great. Still, we have one thing to our advantage here: Instead of escaping towards the central stairs, Bremondt cornered himself at the far end of the dais. We only need to occupy two tiles, in front of him and to his left, to completely block any escape. Sure, that leaves us in range of his fiery breath every turn, but in turn we get to hit him as much as we like - what could possibly go wrong?
Every turn, I use Gillian's Arithmeticks to cast a no-MP, no-cast time Arise, and it's barely enough to stay ahead of the damage the Dark Dragon is wrecking on my party. Because Ramza is optimized for Iaido damage, his physical attack kind of sucks, but his Iaido damage also sucks; Mustadio is using the Glacial Gun, so he might as well not be involved in this fight. Beowulf is… okay… but I don't control him, and he spends most of his turns just moving around and Waiting because he can't find an accessible corner to hit the Dragon from. That means Hester is really my only decent damage dealer, but she's made of tissue paper, so Gillian keeps bringing her up to score a hit and then go down to Counter again. The problem is - I forget to put Gillian out of harm's way.
The Dragon takes down Mustadio, and instead of bringing him back up immediately, I focus on raising Hester for more damage. This, however, frees up the tile for the Dragon to sneak out of my firing squad, move to my rear line, and incinerate Gillian.
With Gillian and Mustadio both down, I have no unit capable of raising downed characters. I try desperately to pile on enough damage to bring the dragon down before the death counters tick down, and I manage to bring it into its critical HP animation…
…but Mustadio perishes, and it's time to reload.
That is.
Frustrating.
I have to redo not only the entire Dark Dragon battle, but also the entire Celebrant Bremondt battle, including all the steals.
The quicksave slots which I picked up during this fight are sorely tempting me. I did use them, earlier, because I was getting tired of rolling random Steal chances and just wanted to be done with it. But here, it would just reload me into the battle with the same unit comp, which sucks against the Dark Dragon. No, I need to redo this all from the start the right way.
Welcome back, Agrias. Sorry, Mustadio. Your performance was below requirement today. And we're swapping Gillian back to White Mage so she doesn't have to contort math into unholy shapes to cast a simple healing spell.
Let's breeze past the initial fight. Recreating the configuration necessary to steal the Masamune and the Chantage without suffering too many enemy attacks is complicated, but we trod that ground already. It takes time, but we eventually pull it off. Sure, in the process, Bremondt manages to cast Arise on a Ninja, but all support units disappear when he completes his transformation, so that doesn't ma-
…
……
So the thing about Mustadio is, all jokes about his propensity to die aside, what he brings to a squad is consistency. He has a long-range, medium-damage, 100% accuracy attack that can finish off enemies that are outside of my other characters' OHK damage range or weaken enemies that are still in the rear of battle. And he's a Chemist, so he can flexibly respond to my other units' needs with no-cast time, ranged item used, curing nearly any status effect, shoring up weakened units' HP, and raising downed units.
And the primary unit he supports is Gillian. Gillian with Arithmetics can do anything he can do better, but when she goes down, it's Mustadio who immediately raises her. Or, failing that, Hadrian in extremis - except Hadrian isn't in this battle because Beowulf takes up my final unit slot. Which means there's no one to raise Gillian.
Which means I need to first kill Bremondt, then the Dark Dragon in the three turns it will take her death counter to tick down. And I have to do it all with Hester, a unit with very high damage but glass bones, who dies as soon as the Dark Dragon so much as breathes on her. And every time she attacks him, she risks a Counter.
Very well.
Even with Excalibur equipped and the Tynar Rouge, Agrias's damage does not exceed Hester's combined dual-wield damage. This will be a pure DPS race, and it'll be tight.
There's not much to say here. I attack as much as I can, as fast as I can, while the Dragon takes down Hester immediately - but Hester gets back up thanks to Dragonheart, and his next Counter misses. Everything comes down to who hits, who misses, who goes down, and how much damage we're able to deal. 500… 1000… 1500…
2000. Gillian's counter tick down to 1.
2500. Gillian is down to 0. When her next turn in the roster comes, she will die. Hester is down again, for good this time - no Reraise in store, no one to get her back up. The Dark Dragon is in critical HP. It slips between our units, to the last corner (I wonder if its AI is trying to minimize how many angles I can attack it from; it's certainly working at keeping Beowulf completely stalled). It hits Ramza from the back with a breath attack…
Divine Ruination. 3000+ damage, and the battle is over.
Bremondt's cursed form vanishes, and the old man is left on the ground, kneeling, all too human for his last moments.
Bremondt: "Reis… is… mine…"
[He dies.]
Beowulf: "Reis belongs to no one."
A sweet sentiment, though ultimately this played out like a typical damsel in distress beat, despite Reis being if anything a more effective unit than Beowulf. We get Zeus's Mace as a trophy from the battle, which is a nice gift for Gillian (it boosts MA and PA).
Cut to the chambers in which Reis is kept locked in.
She looks out the window onto the night, and looks down sadly. Then, a voice outside - men are searching the rooms all around! Scared, Reis backs up away from the door towards the window…
Of course it's Beowulf. The two race around the central table and embrace one another as Ramza enters.
They even did a little swoosh effect for their clothes and hair.
Reis: "Beowulf! I knew you'd come!"
Beowulf: "It's over now, my love. It's over, for good and all. No one will chase us any longer."
[They part and turn to Ramza.]
Beowulf: "Thank you, Ramza. You are the reason she's safe. We've brought naught but trouble upon you, yet you have never failed to aid us in our plight."
Ramza: "Think naught of it. What sort of man would I be to ignore those in need of my aid?"
Beowulf: "I owe you a debt of steel. I shall repay it in kind."
Our reward for going through this whole sidequest is, hilariously enough, more female-only items for Reis, including the Sortilège perfume which grants auto-Protect and auto-Shell. Beowulf and Reis join our party once more, retaining all levels and stats from before, and this ends their little side story.
It was nice to deal with a little side-story that was unrelated to either the intense politics and military angle of the game or the Lucavi threat, but an unrelated, smaller, more personal evil, culminating in a pretty tense and effective boss fights and with some spectacular rewards. Narratively it was a little underbaked, but I did like the twist with Aliste, and another corrupt clergyman is just par for the course for the genre.
Plus? Slaying dragons never goes out of style.
Cut for image count.
Alright. We must now live with the consequences of Aliste's pro gamer move and save Reis from Cardinal Bremondt. We do get a reward out of this - while Aliste's equipment could not be stolen, we are rewarded with the Genji Armor as a trophy upon victory, and we get a save screen and party screen in which to equip it.
It's the best armor in the game by HP numbers but I am genuinely not sure that +150 HP beats a lower HP count with special immunities or stat boosts; the Mirage Vest grants only +120 HP but also +1 Speed and immunity to Sleep, Poison and Stone, which seems stronger.
All of Bremondt's support units are female, which is probably saying something about him as a character, but it's arguable what.
Cardinal Bremondt is pacing back and forth rapidly, clearly nervous; he knows Beowulf is coming, and he's afraid. When one of his soldiers enters and tells him the gate has been breached, he reacts by starting visibly in fright. And not only have we breached the gate, but "a great number of [their] troops have fallen comatose. We know not why. We fear them drugged."
…oh, never mind then, "the effects should have taken hold by now" was referring to Aliste drugging the garrison to allow us passage instead, not to him dosing up on meth to fight his way past the cancer. That is markedly less cool, even if it's more useful to us.
Bremondt has a total freakout, playing out a specific 'shaking' animation and pose for the rest of the conversation. The Ninja says their remaining soldiers are engaging the enemy, but these are no ordinary soldiers, and they will not be held long.
This is, of course, the precise moment we enter the Oratory.
Look at his portrait. Just look at this greasy motherfucker.
Beowulf: "Bremondt! I come for Reis. I shall have her relinquished at once!"
Bremondt: [He covers his hand with his face.] "B-Beowulf! N-no! C-come no closer! K-kill them! Kill them all! You'll… you'll have whatever reward you wish! Gil - or… or jewels! Wealth enough to… to last you all your days!"
[The units all turn to look at one another, then back to us.]
Beowulf: "Reis… I'll soon see you safe."
[OBJECTIVE: DEFEAT BREMONDT!]
Yeah, Bremondt is not going to be one of the cool Tactics antagonists. He is one of the most pathetic opponents we've had, just a cringing, terrified wet mop of a person. At lv 51 and with powerful unique equipment available (all of it protected by Safeguard), he will nonetheless largely content himself with casting Arise on his support units while fleeing from direct battle, as appropriate to his general vibe.
But Bremondt is not what interests us here.
One of the enemy Samurai wields the Masamune. We only Masamune we saw before was Elmdore, and his was protected by innate Safeguard and could not be stolen. This is our true objective. Because we are unlikely to bother acquiring the true ultimate katana, this will be Ramza's final Iaido skill, and this battle will not be considered a victory until we've succeeded.
Luckily, Hester has been studying Thief skills while out on Errands.
But before that, let's open up on a huge disappointment.
It turns out that elemental guns like the Glacial Gun we just gave to Mustadio sacrifice the main appeal of guns, their fixed damage. Instead, guns have a random chance to use their 1st tier, 2nd tier, or 3d tier spell, with 1st tier having the highest chance of triggering, and being affected by Faith (both Mustadio's and the opponent's). So most of the time, they suck!
Isn't it sad, Mustadio?
No matter. Hester moves up, takes out one Knight, Ramza follows and uses Doomed Aspirations to take out the other. That leaves two Samurai and two Mystics, and Beowulf's turn.
Beowulf: "Will you not accept the truth, Bremondt!? Reis does not love you, nor ever will she!"
Bremondt: "N-no! That's… that's not true! Reis is but deceived! It is you… your lies that blind her heart! When you are gone, it will all be different! There's… there's naught you can do that I cannot. I can buy her aught and all she wishes. She'll want for nothing!"
I don't really have anything to say about Bremondt. He's the cringy incel priest, he turned the thunder-breathing dragon-blooded Reis into a damsel in distress off-screen, whatever. It's a very generic story beat.
There's perhaps… something vaguely uncomfortable in the fact that here we have a story beat entirely about patriarchal violence towards women (abducted and fought over by men as conquests, though of course Beowulf is the good guy and so makes it a point to say that Reis belongs to herself, not him, and his death would not change her choices), but because Bremondt surrounds himself with female units, in order to save Reis, we have to fight through, and presumably kill, several more women in the service of the patriarchal figure. I don't really know what to make of that.
Once the Ninjas are out of the way, I have Gillian cast a Disable algorithm calculated to hit Bremondt, one Samurai and one Mystic. Bremondt is immune to all status effects thanks to his Ribbon, but the goal is mainly to shut down the other units while Hester gets to work. Her odds of stealing from the front on a non-incapacitated Samurai are only 23%, however, so this fails at first; I take another turn taking out the Samurai who isn't carrying a Masamune before trying again.
Beowulf: "'Tis your mind that is deceived, you who deceive it! Love is not a thing for goods or gil exchanged! Reis would never open her heart to a man such as you! My living or dying plays no part in it!"
Bremondt: "You… you cannot fool me! You do not… You do not know her as I do! Reis is mine! My own! I will not surrender her to you!"
Beowulf: "Your notion of love is one of control and possession. Such a thing is not love! Reis freely took the curse you meant for me, though she knew what it might entail. For her, I would fain do the same. That is what it means to love. And it is something you will never know."
Bremondt: "No! It is you - you and that vile tongue! I need only silence it, and we can live together in bliss!"
Bremondt attempts to cast Arise on one of his Ninjas, and whiffs. As much as I hate that mechanic, it is hilarious to see that it can happen to our opponents as well.
We do get a brief 'ouch' moment when the Masamune Samurai reminds us that enemies can, in fact, use Iaido and hits Ramza and Hester with Cloudsea Curse. However, she's a generic Samurai, instead of the unholy MA-optimized monster Squire I made Ramza, so she suffers the Samurai's characteristic "MA ability in a PA growth class" issue and doesn't really do much damage, and now…
Score! We got the Masamune. That's gonna be a wrap, folks. Unless… One of these Mystics has the Chantage perfume, you say? The Accessory that grants permanent Reraise to its unit?
Alright, let's get a little greedy.
Didn't even take long.
Bremondt does manage to bring back the other Samurai while we were busy thieving, though. It still works out - Beowulf takes out the second Samurai, Gillian uses Arithmetics to heal herself and friendly units, Ramza's Iaido takes out the resurrected Samurai, and with only one Mystic left, everyone corners Bremondt at the back of the Cathedral to finish him off.
…whaddayamean, "Power of the Dark."
Oh… Wait… If Bremondt was the one who cast a curse meant to turn Beowulf into a dragon who would lose his humanity… Then logically…
…ah.
Bremondt has become the Dark Dragon. Like Lucavi opponents, this beast's status page is unreadable, and its LV, Exp, HP, MP, and CT gauges are all marked ???.
Whatever its true stats, it is incredibly resilient to magic. Mustadio gets the 'honors' of being the first character to act after the transformation, and he fires his Glacial Gun for 17 damage. Now, this is of course, in part merely the curse of being Mustadio. But even when Ramza goes next, his Doomed Aspirations do a mere 216 damage, way below his normal damage - and Iaido isn't affected by Faith. It's clear that Dark Dragon Bremondt is rocking not just an abysmal Faith rating, but also Arcane Defense. Magic will avail us little here.
Jesus Christ, even Holy is not breaking the triple-digit damage.
I fired an Arithmetics Holy that would hit both Bremondt and Gillian, hoping the damage of her strongest spell would offset the self-inflicted KO. That was a mistake. Holy does nearly no damage at all to the Dragon, while taking out Gillian instantly. Fortunately, Mustadio is quick to throw her a Phoenix Down, but in the meantime…
Bremondt's Ice Breath brings down Hester in one hit, freeing the path for the dragon to relocate near the edge of the dais. Thankfully, Hester had Dragonheart up, so she follows the beast and stabs it with a double attack for a hefty 448 damage… And immediately eats Counter to the face.
It's not going great. Still, we have one thing to our advantage here: Instead of escaping towards the central stairs, Bremondt cornered himself at the far end of the dais. We only need to occupy two tiles, in front of him and to his left, to completely block any escape. Sure, that leaves us in range of his fiery breath every turn, but in turn we get to hit him as much as we like - what could possibly go wrong?
Every turn, I use Gillian's Arithmeticks to cast a no-MP, no-cast time Arise, and it's barely enough to stay ahead of the damage the Dark Dragon is wrecking on my party. Because Ramza is optimized for Iaido damage, his physical attack kind of sucks, but his Iaido damage also sucks; Mustadio is using the Glacial Gun, so he might as well not be involved in this fight. Beowulf is… okay… but I don't control him, and he spends most of his turns just moving around and Waiting because he can't find an accessible corner to hit the Dragon from. That means Hester is really my only decent damage dealer, but she's made of tissue paper, so Gillian keeps bringing her up to score a hit and then go down to Counter again. The problem is - I forget to put Gillian out of harm's way.
The Dragon takes down Mustadio, and instead of bringing him back up immediately, I focus on raising Hester for more damage. This, however, frees up the tile for the Dragon to sneak out of my firing squad, move to my rear line, and incinerate Gillian.
With Gillian and Mustadio both down, I have no unit capable of raising downed characters. I try desperately to pile on enough damage to bring the dragon down before the death counters tick down, and I manage to bring it into its critical HP animation…
…but Mustadio perishes, and it's time to reload.
That is.
Frustrating.
I have to redo not only the entire Dark Dragon battle, but also the entire Celebrant Bremondt battle, including all the steals.
The quicksave slots which I picked up during this fight are sorely tempting me. I did use them, earlier, because I was getting tired of rolling random Steal chances and just wanted to be done with it. But here, it would just reload me into the battle with the same unit comp, which sucks against the Dark Dragon. No, I need to redo this all from the start the right way.
Welcome back, Agrias. Sorry, Mustadio. Your performance was below requirement today. And we're swapping Gillian back to White Mage so she doesn't have to contort math into unholy shapes to cast a simple healing spell.
Let's breeze past the initial fight. Recreating the configuration necessary to steal the Masamune and the Chantage without suffering too many enemy attacks is complicated, but we trod that ground already. It takes time, but we eventually pull it off. Sure, in the process, Bremondt manages to cast Arise on a Ninja, but all support units disappear when he completes his transformation, so that doesn't ma-
…
……
So the thing about Mustadio is, all jokes about his propensity to die aside, what he brings to a squad is consistency. He has a long-range, medium-damage, 100% accuracy attack that can finish off enemies that are outside of my other characters' OHK damage range or weaken enemies that are still in the rear of battle. And he's a Chemist, so he can flexibly respond to my other units' needs with no-cast time, ranged item used, curing nearly any status effect, shoring up weakened units' HP, and raising downed units.
And the primary unit he supports is Gillian. Gillian with Arithmetics can do anything he can do better, but when she goes down, it's Mustadio who immediately raises her. Or, failing that, Hadrian in extremis - except Hadrian isn't in this battle because Beowulf takes up my final unit slot. Which means there's no one to raise Gillian.
Which means I need to first kill Bremondt, then the Dark Dragon in the three turns it will take her death counter to tick down. And I have to do it all with Hester, a unit with very high damage but glass bones, who dies as soon as the Dark Dragon so much as breathes on her. And every time she attacks him, she risks a Counter.
Very well.
Even with Excalibur equipped and the Tynar Rouge, Agrias's damage does not exceed Hester's combined dual-wield damage. This will be a pure DPS race, and it'll be tight.
There's not much to say here. I attack as much as I can, as fast as I can, while the Dragon takes down Hester immediately - but Hester gets back up thanks to Dragonheart, and his next Counter misses. Everything comes down to who hits, who misses, who goes down, and how much damage we're able to deal. 500… 1000… 1500…
2000. Gillian's counter tick down to 1.
2500. Gillian is down to 0. When her next turn in the roster comes, she will die. Hester is down again, for good this time - no Reraise in store, no one to get her back up. The Dark Dragon is in critical HP. It slips between our units, to the last corner (I wonder if its AI is trying to minimize how many angles I can attack it from; it's certainly working at keeping Beowulf completely stalled). It hits Ramza from the back with a breath attack…
Divine Ruination. 3000+ damage, and the battle is over.
Bremondt's cursed form vanishes, and the old man is left on the ground, kneeling, all too human for his last moments.
Bremondt: "Reis… is… mine…"
[He dies.]
Beowulf: "Reis belongs to no one."
A sweet sentiment, though ultimately this played out like a typical damsel in distress beat, despite Reis being if anything a more effective unit than Beowulf. We get Zeus's Mace as a trophy from the battle, which is a nice gift for Gillian (it boosts MA and PA).
Cut to the chambers in which Reis is kept locked in.
She looks out the window onto the night, and looks down sadly. Then, a voice outside - men are searching the rooms all around! Scared, Reis backs up away from the door towards the window…
Of course it's Beowulf. The two race around the central table and embrace one another as Ramza enters.
They even did a little swoosh effect for their clothes and hair.
Reis: "Beowulf! I knew you'd come!"
Beowulf: "It's over now, my love. It's over, for good and all. No one will chase us any longer."
[They part and turn to Ramza.]
Beowulf: "Thank you, Ramza. You are the reason she's safe. We've brought naught but trouble upon you, yet you have never failed to aid us in our plight."
Ramza: "Think naught of it. What sort of man would I be to ignore those in need of my aid?"
Beowulf: "I owe you a debt of steel. I shall repay it in kind."
Our reward for going through this whole sidequest is, hilariously enough, more female-only items for Reis, including the Sortilège perfume which grants auto-Protect and auto-Shell. Beowulf and Reis join our party once more, retaining all levels and stats from before, and this ends their little side story.
It was nice to deal with a little side-story that was unrelated to either the intense politics and military angle of the game or the Lucavi threat, but an unrelated, smaller, more personal evil, culminating in a pretty tense and effective boss fights and with some spectacular rewards. Narratively it was a little underbaked, but I did like the twist with Aliste, and another corrupt clergyman is just par for the course for the genre.
Plus? Slaying dragons never goes out of style.
Cut for image count.
Final Fantasy Tactics, Part 22.C: Agrias's Closure, Beowulf and Reis's Closure, Midlight's Deep
New
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Midlight's Deep
So.
There is one last thing to take care of before hitting the endgame:
Midlight's Deep, the game's bonus dungeon. And an… interesting take on the concept, as befits a game that's doing so many things different from any other Final Fantasy game. But it follows in the basic tradition established by Eureka in FF3 (which was only nominally a bonus dungeon, since the game would kick your teeth in if you tried to skip it, but it's technically optional and established a lot of convention that later, 'actually optional' dungeons would follow): A gauntlet of battle in a dire environment in which you can unlock the various ultimate weapons for your characters, ending on a special boss fight.
It's just doing… Some of these conventions… Differently.
First, we must unlock Midlight's Deep. For this, we must head to the Port City of Warjilis, where a cutscene plays out.
Two patrons are talking about a mysterious island filled with "treasures beyond worth, down in the depths, out of sight and reach" - untouched until now because it is guarded not only by deadly traps, but a wizard with a soul as dark as the caverns themselves. Exciting! Meanwhile, that Knight and that Mage above get into a fight over some adventure they were part of, which is an amusing glimpse of how while we're having this particular tactical warfare story, some people are having more traditional RPG party adventures.
And there it is. The island of Midlight's Deep, where a lonely lighthouse watches other the Bugross Sea.
Let's head in.
Midlight's Deep is divided into several levels, which must be unlocked in turn. The first one is The Crevasse, and it sets the pattern for every level to come.
It's also the reason why I can't possibly tackle Midlight's Deep in this Let's Play the same way as I do most missions. Behold:
Darkness.
The core gimmick of Midlight's Deep is darkness. We do not see the shape of the battlefield. We do see targeting squares for movement and attacks, and we can use these to get a limited sense of the dungeon layout, but this is sharply limited by our range. While a character can 'see' where they will land within their movement range, they cannot 'see' if there is going to be a cliff in front of that, or a chasm. That makes navigating those levels… Challenging.
There are a couple of initial ways of getting the lay of the land, as it were; mainly, the animation for some abilities and spells will illuminate the terrain's outline (but not reveal specific details of depth), while having a wide-ranging ability like Jump will reveal many tiles at once and give a rough idea of the layout:
The first problem is, of course, that these are temporary and individually incomplete, so we need a different long term approach. The second problem is that…
Well, I'm not going to show you fifty pictures of complete darkness with identical sprites in them. That would be incredibly dull and also we would have no idea what we're even looking at.
So we'll be skipping over large parts of Midlight's Deep gameplay and focusing on the essence of the dungeon, so to speak.
At least as soon as I figure it out myself. Because my first attempt was… Unsuccessful? Too successful? The darkness was an interesting hindrance to navigate, but ultimately overwhelming firepower saw us through. By which I mean, I calculated the most common denominator to most enemies, and killed everyone with a single Holy cast. Three units survived, and were quickly wiped out. Victory!
Aaaand we're back at the top of the island… And the path down is not unlocked. All we can do is just revisit the Crevasse.
So. Simply killing everything is not an option. We need a different approach. What kind of approach?
Well, you see, across the entire map of the Crevasse, there is one tile which contains the secret passage down to the next level.
One tile. And we must end a unit's movement on it. But first, we must actually locate the tile. And that means we need to be able to navigate the map, which is almost impossible at this moment.
So, how do we actually engage with Midlight's Deep? Well, there's a secret. We need to bring a light.
No, we can't just buy a torch in town. And no, magic doesn't count - it only lasts an instant, like you can see in the Holy screenshot above. But there is another source.
Murder.
You see, the crystals which are created when a unit dies generate light. And that light? Is enough to continuously illuminate the battlefield.
Goblin genocide.
One crystal is enough to barely light up the cavern enough for us to find our marks. It's not ideal, but it's enough. Higher numbers are better; here's two:
So, now we have a light, and we can see our map. Of course, in order for an enemy to turn into a crystal, we must not only kill them, but also wait three turns, which is an eternity. Of course, during that time, we can dispose of the rest of the enemies… Except one.
We always have to keep one enemy alive for the whole time we're waiting for the crystallization and then the exit, or else we "win" the encounter and it instantly ends. It's an incredibly unintuitive, game-y behavior and it frustrates me, and it is what it is.
Now, we have to find the tile that contains the secret passage. And clearly, we're just looking it up. I am not even trying to bother with finding it myself. But here's the thing. Let me show you a map from the guide I'm using:
Do you see these black circles numbered 1 to 5? Each one is a potential exit. Only one is the actual exit, and it's randomly rolled when we load the map. Which means we have to investigate up to five separate tiles, per map, in order to find the way down.
When we do…
We get a message telling us this, and then we need to finish the encounter by killing the poor, hapless sacrifice we've been keeping alive (and likely constantly debuffed) this whole time. Then we head back to the surface, and we can access the next level.
So there you have it. Those are the basics of Midlight's Deep. We must repeat this until we reach the bottom level… Ten levels deep.
That's right, we need to repeat this nine more times.
What's this? "What about the unique endgame weapons in this area?" Right! About that.
They're all Treasure Hunt tiles. That means we need to locate the right tiles (they're the yellow circles on the map above), walk onto them with a character who has Treasure Hunter as their movement ability, and then we roll the dice and hope we get the rare/unique gear, instead of the Common Drop, which is always a goddamned Phoenix Down. And to maximize our odds, we want a low-Bravery character, like Rapha, who will probably die if any monster in this dungeon so much as look at her funny.
So.
We're not doing that.
We are, straight up, not bothering with the loot. We are carving a path straight down to the bonus boss, and that's it. This is our only goal, and while I feel comfortable skipping over 90% of the actual process of completing Midlight's Deep from this point forward. For this, we'll be using everything - Hadrian with the Javelin II for 600+ damage hit, Holy with Arithmetics, Masamune to Haste the whole party at the start of each encounter and reloading a quicksave if it breaks in the process, Agrias with Excalibur and Tynar Rouge, Cidolfus himself… Anything it takes to win.
On some level, it's a shame. Each map is an interesting tactical scenario, using the darkness to confound and confuse the player, presenting a different assortment of monsters (they're random each time, but they pull from a pool specific to each map, so one place will have Malboros, another will have undead and Ninjas, so on), and each level has increasing enemy levels… They're not as curated an experience as the proper story maps, but they're interesting.
I say 'interesting' rather than 'fun' because, well. You can imagine how frustrating the third map of total darkness that we must engage with by killing everything except one unit we need to disable but keep alive, then wait three turns for enemies to crystallize so we can explore five separate possible tiles for the exit.
At which point we still have seven more left. So.
I'll just make a special mention of this map, Number 7, the Crossing, which is notable mainly because of its all-undead encounter, which.
This has not been relevant in 40 hours of gameplay and like twenty updates, but if you wait for undead enemies to crystallize, they sometimes revive.
And we have to wait three turns for an enemy to crystallize to get a light. Which means we need to kill as many as possible, rolling dice for every one, and then some turn to chests instead of crystals, and some COME BACK FROM THE DEAD TO HAUNT US AGAIN.
I'm fine. This is fine. This map is fine.
Eventually we end it, but god. What a nightmare.
Also special mention: That hilarious thing:
A map composed entirely of dragons and dragoons. Hilarious.
Eventually though, we make our way down all nine levels, and to the tenth: Terminus.
This is where our final challenges awaits.
Elidibus.
The great wizard of the Fifty Years War, long gone missing, sits at the very pit of Midlight's Deep, surrounded by Reaver demons - and he speaks like a Lucavi.
Elidibus: "What's this? The shadows glisten. An umbrage falls upon my meditation. The air is charged - Stones? Seek you the auracite as well? Reap, then, your reward! For to it I am wed, and unto me power beyond knowing granted."
[He holds out an auracite, and light gathers.]
But… wait. We have all the Stones accounted for; ten in our possession, Leo with Folmarv, Virgo with Alma. What, then, is this? Our answers must wait.
Elidibus transforms.
Sadly, this area has the same darkness effect as all Midlight's Deep maps, which makes it difficult to properly see his sprite - but he takes on the form of a giant, carrying an enormous snake over his shoulder.
Serpent-bearer.
Ophiocus, one of the 13 constellations that cross the ecliptic, often considered the "13th sign of the Zodiac."
But wait, there's more.
Because this map is another darkness map and we are reaching the end of a fairly long update, I will spare you most of the details. The basic shape of this map is an upwards spiral towards the pillar on which Elidibus was meditating, though the Serpent-Bearer will be climbing down to meet us regardless. The Reaver demons are arranged along the spiral, and will also come down to meet us with their Bio-type status spells. You can see the basic shape of the spiral from Hadrian's jumping range:
If you'll notice, there's a purple Reaver behind our party. I at first thought it an ambush, but it is marked as a guest unit; named "Byblos," this creature is an unexplained ally, who fights alongside us, though I never got a chance to see its abilities. We don't know why it's helping us, only that it is.
On our first turn, I hold everyone back so that Ramza can use Masamune to cast Haste and Regen on the entire party. Then we rush up the stairs, with the goal being to cut through all the Reavers fast enough they don't get to cast their spells - this is only partly successful, as two Reavers manage to fire off Biora and Bioga before getting murked, but we weather the assault relatively safely. Gillian uses Golem to protect everyone with a shield of extra HP, and our front line units tear the demons to shred.
Soon, however, Elidibus takes his turn, and he prepares a Summon aimed at Ramza. Thanks to my party's incredible base Speed and everyone being buffed with Haste, I actually get to act before it fires. The strategic choice would be to move Ramza away from the party so that he's the only victim of the summon's AoE.
But that's not why I'm here. You see, I am informed that there is one thing we can get out of this whole ordeal that isn't incredibly annoying treasure hunt loot:
A unique summon. Elidibus's unique summon. Only the greatest wizard of the War, a secret Lucavi, bearer of the thirteenth Zodiac Stone, can use it. But we can learn it from him… By having him cast it on a Summoner unit.
This is why I've been having Gillian as a Summoner this whole time. All of this has been building up for this moment.
I move Ramza back into my own line so that Gillian will be in the AoE of the Summon.
Come at me.
Wait, quick question.
What's the name of that Summon, anyway?
…
I-
I'm SORRY!?
ZODIARK?
At the bottom of the deepest dungeon in the world, at the heart of darkness, we find the bearer of the thirteenth auracite and his name is Elidibus and he summons the most powerful summon, which is called Zodiark and its power is "Darkening Cloud"? What?
Has Final Fantasy XIV been one giant Tactics reference this entire time-
God, how do I even explain why this is driving me insane to my non-FFXIV playing readers without spending an hour on it? Okay, in the simplest possible terms: At some point in the game, we are introduced to a character called Elidibus. He is part of a group who worship a dark god called Zodiark, and their goal is to release him from his prison. "The Ascians are trying to release Zodiark" is like, introducing fairly early as the larger scope threat behind various smaller events in the game, and Elidibus acts as the "face" of the Ascians for some important story stuff. And that's all I can say about it.
This is insane.
Okay, okay, let's focus on this fight for now.
What's this?
Oh. Everyone's dead. Right.
Zodiark hit essentially everyone for lethal damage. My fault; I let Ramza walk back into the main body of the party while he had a laser pointer on his back that served to aim a nuclear weapon. That was stupid. With Gillian dead, I don't have a way to, like… raise Gillian.
And she needed to survive that hit in order to learn Zodiark. I have no idea how I can make her survive a 522 damage magical hit. With Shell, maybe…?
Well, that's moot for this run. We'll call it a wash, and-
Hester.
Hester what are you doing.
Hester, you're entirely alone. And you're a Ninja. You have glass bones. And even if you didn't, you deal, what… 325 damage a hit on a crit? Less on most rounds. Sure, you hit twice, but that's not… Enough..? She goes twice before Elidibus goes again, then he starts charging up Zodiark, and she hits once in the casting time - but then Haste wears off, and the sentence falls.
Of course it's not enough. Elidibus completes his second Zodiark summon. The ultimate summon in the game is entirely overkill; 425 damage far exceeds Hester's Ninja HP. She goes down.
She has Reraise, of course, from Dragonheart triggered by an earlier attack (Elidibus Counter-Tackles attacks for a measly 15 damage). But when all characters are down, the battle ends, even if one of them has Reraise up, so-
…Byblos is still here.
The useless guest unit who's just been slowly climbing up the stairwell is a Guest Unit who counts against Game Over.
That allows Hester's Reraise to tick up.
She stands.
She strikes.
The last survivor of my party. Having taken Zodiark head-on, gone down, and risen again. Hester has dealt over two thousand damage to Elidibus, on her own.
She has just defeated Midlight's Deep's bonus boss, solo.
Outstanding performance.
Byblos joins the party as a permanent guest, we haven't learned Zodiark and will need to reload and strategize if we want to acquire the ultimate summon, we've obtained the hidden thirteenth Zodiac Stone, but right now I don't care: We did it. We beat the bonus dungeon.
And in an absolutely clutch performance and downright shounen heroic moment, Hester defeated the bonus boss on her own.
And that's why we play Final Fantasy Tactics, folks.
That about concludes the adventure of Midlight's Deep. Maybe I'll go fishing for Zodiark, maybe not. The rewards are whatever, I really did it for the final boss and the-
FUCKING-
ELIDIBUS
ZODIARK
I'm so mad. I have been played for a fool. In retrospect, there was no way this Let's Play project could have been complete without Tactics. A central piece of the XIV puzzle was missing. It all makes sense now; I am enlightened.
…
And with this, we have completed all the optional content I'm aware of in Tactics - except for "rare battles"; I have been informed of their existence and how they work, and I try to deliberately encounter them, but it didn't work for a while and I got bored and walked off to do side quests or plot stuff.
No, we have but one next step, clear and obvious:
The endgame.
Thank you for reading.
Next Time: To Orbonne Monastery, one final time.
Main Story Battle Count: 50
Side Quest Battle Count: 21
Random Encounter Count: 72
So.
There is one last thing to take care of before hitting the endgame:
Midlight's Deep, the game's bonus dungeon. And an… interesting take on the concept, as befits a game that's doing so many things different from any other Final Fantasy game. But it follows in the basic tradition established by Eureka in FF3 (which was only nominally a bonus dungeon, since the game would kick your teeth in if you tried to skip it, but it's technically optional and established a lot of convention that later, 'actually optional' dungeons would follow): A gauntlet of battle in a dire environment in which you can unlock the various ultimate weapons for your characters, ending on a special boss fight.
It's just doing… Some of these conventions… Differently.
First, we must unlock Midlight's Deep. For this, we must head to the Port City of Warjilis, where a cutscene plays out.
Two patrons are talking about a mysterious island filled with "treasures beyond worth, down in the depths, out of sight and reach" - untouched until now because it is guarded not only by deadly traps, but a wizard with a soul as dark as the caverns themselves. Exciting! Meanwhile, that Knight and that Mage above get into a fight over some adventure they were part of, which is an amusing glimpse of how while we're having this particular tactical warfare story, some people are having more traditional RPG party adventures.
And there it is. The island of Midlight's Deep, where a lonely lighthouse watches other the Bugross Sea.
Let's head in.
Midlight's Deep is divided into several levels, which must be unlocked in turn. The first one is The Crevasse, and it sets the pattern for every level to come.
It's also the reason why I can't possibly tackle Midlight's Deep in this Let's Play the same way as I do most missions. Behold:
Darkness.
The core gimmick of Midlight's Deep is darkness. We do not see the shape of the battlefield. We do see targeting squares for movement and attacks, and we can use these to get a limited sense of the dungeon layout, but this is sharply limited by our range. While a character can 'see' where they will land within their movement range, they cannot 'see' if there is going to be a cliff in front of that, or a chasm. That makes navigating those levels… Challenging.
There are a couple of initial ways of getting the lay of the land, as it were; mainly, the animation for some abilities and spells will illuminate the terrain's outline (but not reveal specific details of depth), while having a wide-ranging ability like Jump will reveal many tiles at once and give a rough idea of the layout:
The first problem is, of course, that these are temporary and individually incomplete, so we need a different long term approach. The second problem is that…
Well, I'm not going to show you fifty pictures of complete darkness with identical sprites in them. That would be incredibly dull and also we would have no idea what we're even looking at.
So we'll be skipping over large parts of Midlight's Deep gameplay and focusing on the essence of the dungeon, so to speak.
At least as soon as I figure it out myself. Because my first attempt was… Unsuccessful? Too successful? The darkness was an interesting hindrance to navigate, but ultimately overwhelming firepower saw us through. By which I mean, I calculated the most common denominator to most enemies, and killed everyone with a single Holy cast. Three units survived, and were quickly wiped out. Victory!
Aaaand we're back at the top of the island… And the path down is not unlocked. All we can do is just revisit the Crevasse.
So. Simply killing everything is not an option. We need a different approach. What kind of approach?
Well, you see, across the entire map of the Crevasse, there is one tile which contains the secret passage down to the next level.
One tile. And we must end a unit's movement on it. But first, we must actually locate the tile. And that means we need to be able to navigate the map, which is almost impossible at this moment.
So, how do we actually engage with Midlight's Deep? Well, there's a secret. We need to bring a light.
No, we can't just buy a torch in town. And no, magic doesn't count - it only lasts an instant, like you can see in the Holy screenshot above. But there is another source.
Murder.
You see, the crystals which are created when a unit dies generate light. And that light? Is enough to continuously illuminate the battlefield.
Goblin genocide.
One crystal is enough to barely light up the cavern enough for us to find our marks. It's not ideal, but it's enough. Higher numbers are better; here's two:
So, now we have a light, and we can see our map. Of course, in order for an enemy to turn into a crystal, we must not only kill them, but also wait three turns, which is an eternity. Of course, during that time, we can dispose of the rest of the enemies… Except one.
We always have to keep one enemy alive for the whole time we're waiting for the crystallization and then the exit, or else we "win" the encounter and it instantly ends. It's an incredibly unintuitive, game-y behavior and it frustrates me, and it is what it is.
Now, we have to find the tile that contains the secret passage. And clearly, we're just looking it up. I am not even trying to bother with finding it myself. But here's the thing. Let me show you a map from the guide I'm using:
Do you see these black circles numbered 1 to 5? Each one is a potential exit. Only one is the actual exit, and it's randomly rolled when we load the map. Which means we have to investigate up to five separate tiles, per map, in order to find the way down.
When we do…
We get a message telling us this, and then we need to finish the encounter by killing the poor, hapless sacrifice we've been keeping alive (and likely constantly debuffed) this whole time. Then we head back to the surface, and we can access the next level.
So there you have it. Those are the basics of Midlight's Deep. We must repeat this until we reach the bottom level… Ten levels deep.
That's right, we need to repeat this nine more times.
What's this? "What about the unique endgame weapons in this area?" Right! About that.
They're all Treasure Hunt tiles. That means we need to locate the right tiles (they're the yellow circles on the map above), walk onto them with a character who has Treasure Hunter as their movement ability, and then we roll the dice and hope we get the rare/unique gear, instead of the Common Drop, which is always a goddamned Phoenix Down. And to maximize our odds, we want a low-Bravery character, like Rapha, who will probably die if any monster in this dungeon so much as look at her funny.
So.
We're not doing that.
We are, straight up, not bothering with the loot. We are carving a path straight down to the bonus boss, and that's it. This is our only goal, and while I feel comfortable skipping over 90% of the actual process of completing Midlight's Deep from this point forward. For this, we'll be using everything - Hadrian with the Javelin II for 600+ damage hit, Holy with Arithmetics, Masamune to Haste the whole party at the start of each encounter and reloading a quicksave if it breaks in the process, Agrias with Excalibur and Tynar Rouge, Cidolfus himself… Anything it takes to win.
On some level, it's a shame. Each map is an interesting tactical scenario, using the darkness to confound and confuse the player, presenting a different assortment of monsters (they're random each time, but they pull from a pool specific to each map, so one place will have Malboros, another will have undead and Ninjas, so on), and each level has increasing enemy levels… They're not as curated an experience as the proper story maps, but they're interesting.
I say 'interesting' rather than 'fun' because, well. You can imagine how frustrating the third map of total darkness that we must engage with by killing everything except one unit we need to disable but keep alive, then wait three turns for enemies to crystallize so we can explore five separate possible tiles for the exit.
At which point we still have seven more left. So.
I'll just make a special mention of this map, Number 7, the Crossing, which is notable mainly because of its all-undead encounter, which.
This has not been relevant in 40 hours of gameplay and like twenty updates, but if you wait for undead enemies to crystallize, they sometimes revive.
And we have to wait three turns for an enemy to crystallize to get a light. Which means we need to kill as many as possible, rolling dice for every one, and then some turn to chests instead of crystals, and some COME BACK FROM THE DEAD TO HAUNT US AGAIN.
I'm fine. This is fine. This map is fine.
Eventually we end it, but god. What a nightmare.
Also special mention: That hilarious thing:
A map composed entirely of dragons and dragoons. Hilarious.
Eventually though, we make our way down all nine levels, and to the tenth: Terminus.
This is where our final challenges awaits.
Elidibus.
The great wizard of the Fifty Years War, long gone missing, sits at the very pit of Midlight's Deep, surrounded by Reaver demons - and he speaks like a Lucavi.
Elidibus: "What's this? The shadows glisten. An umbrage falls upon my meditation. The air is charged - Stones? Seek you the auracite as well? Reap, then, your reward! For to it I am wed, and unto me power beyond knowing granted."
[He holds out an auracite, and light gathers.]
But… wait. We have all the Stones accounted for; ten in our possession, Leo with Folmarv, Virgo with Alma. What, then, is this? Our answers must wait.
Elidibus transforms.
Sadly, this area has the same darkness effect as all Midlight's Deep maps, which makes it difficult to properly see his sprite - but he takes on the form of a giant, carrying an enormous snake over his shoulder.
Serpent-bearer.
Ophiocus, one of the 13 constellations that cross the ecliptic, often considered the "13th sign of the Zodiac."
But wait, there's more.
Because this map is another darkness map and we are reaching the end of a fairly long update, I will spare you most of the details. The basic shape of this map is an upwards spiral towards the pillar on which Elidibus was meditating, though the Serpent-Bearer will be climbing down to meet us regardless. The Reaver demons are arranged along the spiral, and will also come down to meet us with their Bio-type status spells. You can see the basic shape of the spiral from Hadrian's jumping range:
If you'll notice, there's a purple Reaver behind our party. I at first thought it an ambush, but it is marked as a guest unit; named "Byblos," this creature is an unexplained ally, who fights alongside us, though I never got a chance to see its abilities. We don't know why it's helping us, only that it is.
On our first turn, I hold everyone back so that Ramza can use Masamune to cast Haste and Regen on the entire party. Then we rush up the stairs, with the goal being to cut through all the Reavers fast enough they don't get to cast their spells - this is only partly successful, as two Reavers manage to fire off Biora and Bioga before getting murked, but we weather the assault relatively safely. Gillian uses Golem to protect everyone with a shield of extra HP, and our front line units tear the demons to shred.
Soon, however, Elidibus takes his turn, and he prepares a Summon aimed at Ramza. Thanks to my party's incredible base Speed and everyone being buffed with Haste, I actually get to act before it fires. The strategic choice would be to move Ramza away from the party so that he's the only victim of the summon's AoE.
But that's not why I'm here. You see, I am informed that there is one thing we can get out of this whole ordeal that isn't incredibly annoying treasure hunt loot:
A unique summon. Elidibus's unique summon. Only the greatest wizard of the War, a secret Lucavi, bearer of the thirteenth Zodiac Stone, can use it. But we can learn it from him… By having him cast it on a Summoner unit.
This is why I've been having Gillian as a Summoner this whole time. All of this has been building up for this moment.
I move Ramza back into my own line so that Gillian will be in the AoE of the Summon.
Come at me.
Wait, quick question.
What's the name of that Summon, anyway?
…
I-
I'm SORRY!?
ZODIARK?
At the bottom of the deepest dungeon in the world, at the heart of darkness, we find the bearer of the thirteenth auracite and his name is Elidibus and he summons the most powerful summon, which is called Zodiark and its power is "Darkening Cloud"? What?
Has Final Fantasy XIV been one giant Tactics reference this entire time-
God, how do I even explain why this is driving me insane to my non-FFXIV playing readers without spending an hour on it? Okay, in the simplest possible terms: At some point in the game, we are introduced to a character called Elidibus. He is part of a group who worship a dark god called Zodiark, and their goal is to release him from his prison. "The Ascians are trying to release Zodiark" is like, introducing fairly early as the larger scope threat behind various smaller events in the game, and Elidibus acts as the "face" of the Ascians for some important story stuff. And that's all I can say about it.
This is insane.
Okay, okay, let's focus on this fight for now.
What's this?
Oh. Everyone's dead. Right.
Zodiark hit essentially everyone for lethal damage. My fault; I let Ramza walk back into the main body of the party while he had a laser pointer on his back that served to aim a nuclear weapon. That was stupid. With Gillian dead, I don't have a way to, like… raise Gillian.
And she needed to survive that hit in order to learn Zodiark. I have no idea how I can make her survive a 522 damage magical hit. With Shell, maybe…?
Well, that's moot for this run. We'll call it a wash, and-
Hester.
Hester what are you doing.
Hester, you're entirely alone. And you're a Ninja. You have glass bones. And even if you didn't, you deal, what… 325 damage a hit on a crit? Less on most rounds. Sure, you hit twice, but that's not… Enough..? She goes twice before Elidibus goes again, then he starts charging up Zodiark, and she hits once in the casting time - but then Haste wears off, and the sentence falls.
Of course it's not enough. Elidibus completes his second Zodiark summon. The ultimate summon in the game is entirely overkill; 425 damage far exceeds Hester's Ninja HP. She goes down.
She has Reraise, of course, from Dragonheart triggered by an earlier attack (Elidibus Counter-Tackles attacks for a measly 15 damage). But when all characters are down, the battle ends, even if one of them has Reraise up, so-
…Byblos is still here.
The useless guest unit who's just been slowly climbing up the stairwell is a Guest Unit who counts against Game Over.
That allows Hester's Reraise to tick up.
She stands.
She strikes.
The last survivor of my party. Having taken Zodiark head-on, gone down, and risen again. Hester has dealt over two thousand damage to Elidibus, on her own.
She has just defeated Midlight's Deep's bonus boss, solo.
Outstanding performance.
Byblos joins the party as a permanent guest, we haven't learned Zodiark and will need to reload and strategize if we want to acquire the ultimate summon, we've obtained the hidden thirteenth Zodiac Stone, but right now I don't care: We did it. We beat the bonus dungeon.
And in an absolutely clutch performance and downright shounen heroic moment, Hester defeated the bonus boss on her own.
And that's why we play Final Fantasy Tactics, folks.
That about concludes the adventure of Midlight's Deep. Maybe I'll go fishing for Zodiark, maybe not. The rewards are whatever, I really did it for the final boss and the-
FUCKING-
ELIDIBUS
ZODIARK
I'm so mad. I have been played for a fool. In retrospect, there was no way this Let's Play project could have been complete without Tactics. A central piece of the XIV puzzle was missing. It all makes sense now; I am enlightened.
…
And with this, we have completed all the optional content I'm aware of in Tactics - except for "rare battles"; I have been informed of their existence and how they work, and I try to deliberately encounter them, but it didn't work for a while and I got bored and walked off to do side quests or plot stuff.
No, we have but one next step, clear and obvious:
The endgame.
Thank you for reading.
Next Time: To Orbonne Monastery, one final time.
Main Story Battle Count: 50
Side Quest Battle Count: 21
Random Encounter Count: 72
- Location
- SV's Only Complete Persona Quest
- Pronouns
- She/Her
There's also an unofficial fourteenth Zodiac sign, Cetus the Whale, but I don't think any of the Ivalice games reference it. Maybe FF14 got around to it?
Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Eh, it's not a problem killing all those female bodyguards the incel had, they didn't have unique portraits or sprites so it's not like they're real people worthy of moral consideration (the attitude of video games to killing is always going to be very strange to think about)
- Location
- the Republic
- Pronouns
- He/They
Yup. Big time.
Parabola
Divided Loyalties Librarian
- Location
- The Destination of Fate
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The whole thing with Elidibus and Zodiark here is hilarious.
I imagine that even Tactics players must have been blindsided about "Elidibus is Zodiark's 'heart'" in FF14, because IIRC the revelation that Elidibus is Zodiark's heart is simultaneous with the revelation that Zodiark has a heart at all.
Before that reveal in Shadowbringers, I imagine Tactics players merely though like "of course a dude named Elidibus is trying to free Zodiark". And even then, probably not that many! As Omi just demonstrated, this dungeon seems like a pain in the ass to get through! The average Tactics player might well not know Elidibus at all - and those who did go through the dungeon might not remember his name at all!
Man. The FF14 writing crew is so funny, sometimes.
I imagine that even Tactics players must have been blindsided about "Elidibus is Zodiark's 'heart'" in FF14, because IIRC the revelation that Elidibus is Zodiark's heart is simultaneous with the revelation that Zodiark has a heart at all.
Before that reveal in Shadowbringers, I imagine Tactics players merely though like "of course a dude named Elidibus is trying to free Zodiark". And even then, probably not that many! As Omi just demonstrated, this dungeon seems like a pain in the ass to get through! The average Tactics player might well not know Elidibus at all - and those who did go through the dungeon might not remember his name at all!
Man. The FF14 writing crew is so funny, sometimes.
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'll make a longer post reacting to more stuff later (dinnertime coming up) but the short answer is yes. I've mentioned before in the thread, FF14 is extremely heavy on references to Ivalice games - Yoshi P is a self-admitted fan of the Ivalice games and Ivalice references are scattered throughout the game and broadly inform the setting and plot a lot, even outside the ostensible Ivalice-centric sidequests. All the way back to 2.0 the Ascians are Ivalice references and the first relic weapon chain is a Zodiac Braves reference.
- Location
- Somewhere between the stars
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Huh, is this the first game Zodiark showed up in? As a person, whom only really started to experience final fantasy from ffxiv, i really thought Zodiark was like one of those guys that showed up way back from final fantasy one. I thought he was one of the series staples, but i think this is the first time i can recall in this thread i've seen Zodiark show up. I thought the same about Hydalyn, so that was one of the more suprising thing, when i was reading through final fantasy 1-5
Ironically, I've always felt the Ivalice-centric content to be the worst handled of FF14's Ivalice references, possibly because it's so unwilling to do anything of actual interest with them beyond "Hey remember this thing from the Ivalice games? It's here now!"
- Pronouns
- Him/He
Yeah, FFT is so undoubtedly a 'main entry' into the FF series in every way except name. It's the PS1 FF that has a job system, which was otherwise entirely lacking on this platform, it has a memorable story, in the spectrum of 'fantasy woo bullshit versus grounded character-driven drama' it is all the way towards one end, it's got original characters from it show up in the crossover-FF games...
It's actually pretty funny, in the course of this Lets Play I've been playing FF14, so it was an off-hand spoiler that Elidibus was important to the plot in FF14 when you mentioned it early on, and since then I've gone gotten far enough to giggle at what you're going to find in this dungeon.
It's actually pretty funny, in the course of this Lets Play I've been playing FF14, so it was an off-hand spoiler that Elidibus was important to the plot in FF14 when you mentioned it early on, and since then I've gone gotten far enough to giggle at what you're going to find in this dungeon.
Egleris
Vagrant Dragon
- Location
- Italy
Right, so I was waiting for this - in the original PSX translation, the white monsters weren't named Reavers but rather correctly translated as Apanda; I don't know why the WotL mistraslated them, but it did. Apanda and Byblos are, in fact, a reference to FFV - if you check your images from that game, you'll immediately recognize them.
Auto-Shell from the Sortilege combined with Arcane Defense should be enough to make the spell survivable; you'll also want to prioritize HP in the equipment, of course.
The Robe of Lords and the Ragnarock - two of the three treasures on The Switchback map - also have Auto-Shell, if you need your Gillian Accessory slot for something else/want to give the Sortilege to another person and/or need Ramza to survive the summon as well.
If that's not enough, you can try to lower Elidibus MA (if Agrias is still a Knight, surely she has the ability by now?), or Faith (Gillian has the ability in her Speechcraft, doesn't she? Although that'd make her mostly useless for the fight, I imagine). Beware that lowering either too much might cause Elidibus to just stop trying to cast Zodiark - but that only happens if it becomes weaker than his other moves, which is unlikely to happen from just one or two reductions.
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Thozmp
Gets my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine.
"Sword of fury, inject power! Masamune!"
"Attack by the master of commandments! Zodiac!"
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daniel_gudman
KING (in land of blind)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The real funniest thing would be to accidently blow the whole Lucavi conspiracy that Ramza was apparently keeping secret from Delita, in this 11th hour optional cutscene.
"Yeah the Really Important Business I have is helping your friend kill the last of the Literal Demons that have been secretly manipulating this whole war to gain power... oh you didn't know? Guess that means that right now I'm Ramza best friend now, actually. Well, me or Mustadio."
In fairness to the game, the guy who did the "teleport into your camp to abduct somebody" trick is also one of the extremely few characters who also has the "teleport anywhere you want" movement ability, so in terms of the story respecting the game's rules, this nasty little trick actually seems pretty fair.
I think Mustadio stopped being Ramza's best friend after Ramza sicced that murderbot onto Mustadio.
- Location
- PA
…
Now I get to build off that Ramza casts Ultima scene I wrote earlier and do some fun things with it…
As an aside, Omicron's reaction to Zodiark gave me the lovely mental image of Nemo just losing her mind, melding as hard as Sephiroth with the shadows following suit, so that's hilarious.
(Admittedly in practice I don't quite know what would look like on the woman herself, she isn't generally given to proper anger and she's always felt like the type to lean more cold fury, or at least that's how I remember her.)
Now I get to build off that Ramza casts Ultima scene I wrote earlier and do some fun things with it…
As an aside, Omicron's reaction to Zodiark gave me the lovely mental image of Nemo just losing her mind, melding as hard as Sephiroth with the shadows following suit, so that's hilarious.
(Admittedly in practice I don't quite know what would look like on the woman herself, she isn't generally given to proper anger and she's always felt like the type to lean more cold fury, or at least that's how I remember her.)
- Location
- Texas
Fucking what.
Is this going to be a thing for me? All my luck sucked away into random game predictions, never to be used on lottery winnings?
Thozmp
Gets my kicks above the waistline, Sunshine.
Mustadio may no longer think of Ramza as his bestie after the murderbot incident, but that doesn't mean that Ramza feels the same.
"He falls into such amusing poses when he dies." Ramza, probably.
That's just how male best friends are, really. There is absolutely nothing funnier than your best friend eating shit and you getting to laugh at them for it, provided it's not a lasting injury, and that threshold is significantly further in FFT thanks to healing magic.