Stiltzkin and Zedruu are going to be BEST FRIENDS.
Let's Play Every Final Fantasy Game In Order Of Release [Now Playing: Final Fantasy IX]
- Thread starter Omicron
- Start date
- Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Pronouns
- He
Let's be fair, that rhino has a real temper on him.
Final Fantasy IX, Part 8.A: Sorrows of Burmecia (End of Disc 1)
New
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[Lights on; sounds of rain. The CHORUS is weeping. BEATRIX and ZIDANE face one another.]
BEATRIX
I am prepar'd: here is my keen-edg'd sword,
Deck'd with five flower-de-luces on each side;
The which at Touraine, in Saint Katharine's churchyard,
Out of a great deal of old iron I chose forth.
ZIDANE
Then come, o' God's name; I fear no woman.
BEATRIX
And, while I live, I'll ne'er fly from a man.
[They fight.]
ZIDANE
Stay, stay thy hands! thou art an Amazon,
And fightest with the sword of Deborah.
BEATRIX
Christ's mother helps me, else I were too weak.
[Lights out; a DRAGON roars.]
Last time, we made it to the end of Gizamaluke's Grotto, but before we could go on, we moved to Steinert and Dagger's wacky adventures at the South Gate to Alexandria, which is where we pick up today.
I. I Have Officially Given Up On Keeping Track Of "Gates"
This entire section is basically just a series of skits. It starts here, where the guards ask Steiner what the purpose of his visit and he claims he's here for work since they're recruiting workers to fix the gate (which the guards accept at face value despite him being, y'know, a fully armored knight) but they have to check his bag. This leads to a back and forth where Steiner is reluctant to open it (since it's obvious Dagger is inside), but when the guard finally does open the bag, he is instead instantly repulsed by a terrible force:
The smell of many, many jars of Lindblum pickles.
The guards quickly move Steiner on through the gate without bothering to dig further into the bag, and Steiner is soon inside.
Once we're inside the gate fort, Steiner still needs to find a hidden spot for Dagger to come out. There's a side alley that's suitable, but unfortunately, two people are standing in the way, so we need to get them to leave. We do this by alerting them to things that draw their attention elsewhere, one of which is…
…
Worker: "This gate breaks down a lot, 'cause the hinges don't fit very well. This road leads to the bottom of the Mist. No one uses it. There's no need to fix it, really. So, I just polish the gate and make it look all nice. That takes care of it for a couple months. Hee hee."
Upon realizing that this lazy bum is the reason we had to go through the Ice Cavern and Dali and an airship hijacking because the gates were closed, Steiner hilariously has a dialogue choice that is labeled "Kill!" and "Don't kill". If we select "Kill!" Steiner nearly goes to murder the guy before catching himself and saying he almost lost control of himself. Thankfully, we can still take revenge by alerting the chief engineer to the anteater dude's deceit, which causes him to run off to have a word with him.
In the process we learn something interesting: Since Mist engines are reliant on, well, Mist, and this is "the Mist Continent," airships aren't actually able to venture outside of this continent. The rest of the world is "uncharted territory." It's only now that Cid is developing the first steam-powered airships that Lindblum stands on the cusp of exploring the rest of the planet. Curiously, this means that the inhabitants of the Mist Continent haven't explored by sea either; there was a bit of dialogue with Minister Artania earlier that implied that since the development of airships and the Mist covering all sea level locations, all ship traffic in the Mist Continent basically stopped.
If we look past the bright aesthetics, we're actually looking at a setting that basically just managed to pull together from an apocalyptic event that more or less shut down trade and travel in the past few decades thanks to the development of Mist engines.
The other person, "Part-Time Worker Mary," is distracted from her post by talking to her about her… Son? I think? "Jobless Jeff," whose magic item shop went bankrupt recently. It's a nice chance to look at how Steiner does "consoling people":
Steiner: [Angrily.] "What good is it to bemoan what has already happened?" [He makes himself calm down.] "Wh-What I meant to say was that… Now that we are here, there must be things we can do to help the ones we love."
Part-Time Worker Mary: "You're right. I gotta encourage him."
He's trying his best, bless him.
Just as we head for the alley, though, the gate guard comes back and calls out to Steiner.
This is another skit where the game plays up the tension of the guard having seemingly figured something out and giving Steiner orders to approach but stay away, before it turns out that he actually just forgot to hand him a Gate Pass to move on through and the reason he's acting so weird is because he doesn't want to approach Steiner and his smelly pickles.
Steiner actually quotes a line from I Want To Be Your Canary to signal that the way is clear. Dagger gets out and is, understandably, complaining about the smell, and takes a moment to change her clothes (we have a dialogue option that seems to imply Steiner might accidentally peep on her by turning around too early? I didn't take it), though, amusingly, she changes into… The exact same outfit. I guess she has several sets of the exact same overalls and shirt. When he turns around, Steiner reflexively salutes the princess and calls her by her title, before correcting himself, and she reminds him that until they're back at the castle he must call her Dagger.
Which.
Is the part where I must ask why they are doing all of this.
Like… Garnet is, in fact, the Princess of Alexandria, and Steiner is, in fact, a legitimate captain of a knight corps who is escorting her back to the castle.
The reason they tried to keep Garnet's identity a secret before was because Alexandrian agents were actively trying to get her back to Alexandria. Which is… What she's trying to do now. There is no reason for them to maintain secrecy. Their interests align. If anything, saying "hi I'm Princess Garnet and I'm trying to get back to the castle" would get them there faster.
I suppose it could be that Garnet, having seen the Black Waltzes, is worried that publicly announcing herself might result in some psychotic wizard mutant blowing up half the town around her just because, even though she'd be agreeing to go back to Alexandria. But I think the real reason…
Is that Garnet wants to be Dagger. She's gotten a little in love with the romanticism of the road, of her new secret identity, of moving through the world unseen as a Secret Magical Princess.
This cable car has a mechanical unicorn figurehead several meters tall? What? This is incredible. That's so fucking extra.
Dagger: "We're almost there, Steiner. Alexandria is just beyond the summit, right? I managed it without Zidane's help!"
Steiner: "You never needed him to begin with, Princess."
Dagger: "....."
Before boarding the cable car, we have a chance to save, rest, buy some items at the shop, grab a letter from the Moogle, an item from the chest, and, my favorite part, check out a sign that shows us a profile view of the cable car path way so that we can finally make some sense of Alexandria's geography:
Alexandria itself is standing on a plateau at at the top of the Aerbs Mountains; reaching this plateau requires passing through Bohden Gate, boarding the cable car, getting off at Aerbs Alexandria Station, and then passing through either Treno Gate or Dali Gate, whereupon we reach the lake where Alexandria is located. It's very… Linear.
Dali Gate was located near the Village of Dali, which was a small rural village; by contrast, Treno Gate is located near Treno, which is "the city of nobles," which sounds much fancier; that's where Steiner and Dagger are heading.
I think we don't talk enough about how absolutely massive Dagger's forehead is.
As we enter, Part-Time Worker Mary comes on, and she thanks Steiner for his help; he tells her that he thanks her, which confuses her, and then he takes his seat.
Then Steiner delivers a classic "yeah stuff happened off-screen don't worry about it" moment:
Dagger: "Phew… I feel more relaxed now."
Steiner: "That is understandable. Our journey from Lindblum was very tough. But it was your white magic that helped me through the battles against all those monsters, your fortitude that got us past the obnoxious moogles in Chocobo's Forest, and finally, your idea to use gysahl pickles to get past the South Gate guards! I am impressed by your intelligence and courage, Princess!"
Dagger: "Steiner, you can't call me that."
Steiner: "My apologies. I'm just not used to…"
Dagger: "It's okay. I made lots of mistake when Zidane taught me how to talk like this."
Steiner: "That peasant had no manners whatsoever! Although… He did have some wit for a bumpkin, but… The way he spoke to you was simply unacceptable! I say good riddance."
There's a lot I like about this. Steiner making it clear that they were still playing the same game we were even when off-screen, having to deal with random encounters and the like, reinforcing that Dagger is kind of into the whole rogue thing and coming up with her own ideas for sneaking around, and confirming that yes, indeed, moogles do think Dagger is ugly and as a result Zidane missed out on a clue as to the path she took.
But the funniest part to me? Is that with the Lindblum sequence we just saw for ourselves that Steiner is the country bumpkin who is completely lost in the big city, while Zidane is the street urchin from the big city and much more socially adroit (if, as we saw multiple times, prone to putting his foot in his mouth the moment he approaches a girl).
Dagger makes no reply, and one gets the impression that she just thinks that telling Steiner Zidane was actually being helpful is not a battle worth fighting. Plus, she's probably still mad at him for planning to leave her behind.
Still, there is one unforgivable mistake on this scene's part:
It tells us that Steiner and Dagger got into monster fights off-screen, and they have no XP to show for it. They're still lv 7! How could you!
Thus we leave the Alexandrian duo as the cable car makes its slow way up the mountain, and return to Gizamaluke's Grotto, where things are about to be… Significantly less cheery.
Freya attempts to rouse the soldier, but with his last strength he simply tells her to not worry about him and to protect Burmecia, dying before he can finish his sentence. Freya, visibly distraught, promises that she will, and then the whole group leaves the grotto.
We're back on the world map, staring at a somewhat more ominous environment than before, with dark peaks and long stretches of barren ground.
So what's next? Well…
II. Vamo'alla Flamenco [Extended, One Hour]
Of course, we immediately turn around and go back all the way through the grotto so that we can play some more Chocobo Hot & Cold. Burmecia will be fine, it's just a short delay.
What? Look, there are more chocographs I haven't uncovered yet! I need to find them! And all it will take me is…
…
About an hour of fruitless efforts.
Turns out there's more than two Chocographs to be found. But most of them are for areas I can't actually access yet, like this Cold field chocograph, or a chocograph for a location that says it requires me to be able to fly. It seems like the game just randomizes chocograph finds, so that there is absolutely no guarantee that I will land on the graph for the area I'm currently in. So after a while, I eventually give up. It wasn't exactly fruitless - we're basically cash positive from the loot we found playing the game, but it's still disappointing.
Also we fight that dragon at one point. Please keep its visual design in mind, it'll be relevant again at the very end of this update.
So we head back through Gizamaluke's Grotto. In the process, I follow the thread's advice to check out a vine in the moogle room.
It leads to a high place above the Mist, with two forests! Neat! There must be something unique to be found here, so let's check it out-
…
We run into two Garuda birds who spam Stop until half the party is frozen in time and then kill the remainder with an AoE attack that deletes all their HP in one attack, leading to our first game over.
Extremely funny, guys.
Alright, reload and let's finally head back to Burmecia.
First, before heading to the big city, let's check out surrounding locations. As we might expect, there's another Gate.
Once again, we are on the other side of a gate beyond which some battle occurred and the place was razed. I think it might be the same one as with the Gate near Alexandria? But I genuinely struggle to make sense of the geography involved here, this is just confusing to me.
Freya: "The smell of fire… and blood! There must have been a huge battle on the other side of that gate…"
[Quina enters.]
Quina: "Something smell bad. I get bad feeling!" [Quinna approaches the flower patch.] "Flower smell good! You smell flower!" [They start smelling the flowers.]
Freya: "...Quina does whatever s/he feels like doing. I must learn from his ways."
Zidane: "I don't think it's intentional, Freya."
[Freya turns around, kneeling.]
Freya: "No, if I had done as I pleased, I would've been…"
Quina: "Zidane, this flower taste good!"
Zidane: "See what I mean?"
Honestly it's cute that Freya looks at Quina and sees someone whose carefree attitude and pursuit of their own desire is genuinely to be respected and even emulated, I wasn't expecting that.
Oh also there is a giant sand tornado out in the desert that we can't enter.
I don't know what to tell you, it is what it is! Likely a mystery we'll explore later.
Of note is that there are Chocobo tracks in this region, so we can call up Choco to ride him around, which is another point for my "the devs realized world encounters are obnoxious" theory.
Alright.
Let's confront bleak reality.
III. Into the Realm of Rain and Sorrow
This upturned apple barrel is a great portent of things to come.
Zidane calls for Freya to approach, and she is clearly reluctant; as she approaches the city gate, she goes down to one knee.
Zidane: "So… This is Freya's home…"
Freya: "It's been five years… I've been away for so long. Not a night went by when I didn't dream about home. I can't believe I'm here…"
Freya: "I am no longer the selfish child I was five years ago." [She rises.] "The time has come to serve my kingdom as a Burmecian dragon knight once again!"
Zidane: "I'll do what I can to help!"
Quina: "I help, too!"
Vivi: "Me, too!"
"Realm of Eternal Rain" is a sick title, I won't lie.
As they pass the gate, Freya pauses briefly, wondering "What can I do for my kingdom" before admonishing herself that now is not the time.
I get the impression that Freya is harder on herself than she actually deserves for whatever misspent youth she left behind. Five years is… She's 21, right? So she would have left at 16 - the age Zidane is now. That definitely puts a particular perspective on their relationship.
So, Burmecia.
That place has known better days.
It's a beautiful place, with a unique style of architecture compared to Alexandria and Lindblum - one of the most notable is the prominent display of statuary, some depicting rats, but also other anthropomorphic animals, in a way that suggests religious veneration.
It's also desolated, with cards and supplies turned over, and it gets worse the further we go in. It can be hard to parse on these screens, but dead Burmecia lie strewn across the street all throughout town. Beside them, the streets appear empty, and indeed, the army of black mage is not anywhere in sight; it looks like they pushed through into the town in one brutal sweep towards the center, not dispersing to seize control of places or loot it.
That is not to say that they're actually empty.
Monsters roam the streets. It's likely that they came in with the Mist - unlike Alexandria and Lindblum, Burmecia is below Mist level, so the city must have relied on its walls to protect itself from monsters; when the black mages broke in, they left the city wide open for all kinds of creatures.
I suspect most of the casualties among the civilian populations will be the fruit of monster attacks. The city is basically entirely lost. This is a matter of evacuating survivors, not reclaiming the place.
As with the grotto before, encounter variety is low. The Magic Vices are a long-term threat; their special ability, Magic Hammer, depletes MP considerably, which threatens my ability to carry out battles and drains my Ether supply. They are otherwise not exceptionally dangerous, though it takes me a while to manage to get one at just the HP level required for Quina to eat it and learn Magic Hammer themself, as their HP is low and it's easy to overshoot it. The Basilisks here can inflict Gradual Petrify, though thankfully fights are over too quickly for it to matter.
As we approach the center of town, we run into familiar faces.
Zorn: "It is them again!"
Thorn: "Most persistent, they are!"
Zorn & Thorn: "Black mages!"
The Black Mages are still not much more of a threat than they were last time. Of note is that with the Ice Staff stolen from Gizzamaluke, Vivi is now able to cast Blizzara, which is a massive escalation in power - our boy has gone from "falling dramatically behind the physical attackers" to "deal around 1000 damage per spell." Yeesh.
Once the black mages have been dispatched, Zorn and Thorn flail angrily.
Zorn: "The general will punish you for this!"
Thorn: "Yes! Very scary, it is, when the general gets mad!"
Hm. Okay, so we have a 'general' to be looking out for, likely the boss at the end of the city. Curious what that'll be about. With the way clear, we can explore some of the ruined homes of Burmecia - and have to, in order to progress, as the path to get all the items and stuff is a little circuitous.
As we approach this chest, however, we run into something I totally did not expect…
A mimic! That's cute. The old games had "monsters-in-a-box," but this is the first game in which we get a proper mimic, with the whole animated chest thing. There are more than one of these; the first thing they always do in combat is ring a bell to summon an additional monster, always a Magic Vice.
This battle ends up taking much, much longer than you'd expect. This is the one where I try to eat the Magic Vice, but the problem is, when its HP falls too low, the Magic Vice escapes. So I have to reload multiple times. Which gives me ample opportunity to look at the fairly horrifying animation for the Mimic's own Eat command:
It grabs one of our characters, squeezes them into a ball, swallows and chews up that ball, then spits it out amidst a shower of gil. Fortunately, unlike Quina's Eat, this isn't an instant removal from battle, it just deals damage.
Honestly it's a shame we're seeing Burmecia in this state. The place has an Art Nouveau vibe that I really dig. Look at this mural:
Real belle époque hours.
There are multiple Burmecians we can 'interact' with. All of them only 'say' this: "...." It's grim.
Eventually, we find a survivor - a wounded soldier, sitting in a ruined apartment.
He indicates to us where to find a bell to open the way to the palace, and then succumbs to his injuries. We retrieve the "Protection Bell" stashed under the bed, and then, we head upstairs, towards the palace quarter.
IV. If You Save But One Life, It Will Have Been Worth It
Freya: "Zidane…" [They all turn to her.] "Burmecia's royal palace is beyond these steps. It must be in ruins, just like everything else. I can't bear to see it like that…"
Zidane: "I understand, but we can't go back now. We have to find out who's behind this."
Vivi: "...I wanna find out who those guys were… and why I look like them."
Zidane: "Look, Vivi's scared, too. But we have to face reality."
Vivi: "Come on, Freya. It'll be okay…"
[Freya approaches Vivi and crouches in front of him.]
Freya: "Vivi… Do you really know what you're doing? The answer you seek may change your life for the worse.]
Vivi: "Um….. Y-Yeah… But… But I have to… I have to find out who I am… I'm scared… What if I'm not even human?"
SOMEONE HUG THIS POOR CHILD
Freya: "Vivi…"
Quina: "What you talking about? I not human, but you definitely human!"
Quina. Quina please.
God actually this raises so many questions. Like, "human" in FF9 is clearly a broad term: When Vivi asks if he's even human he's clearly not saying it in a way that suggests Freya is not human, despite her being a rat-person. So "human," "human with a monkey tail," and "rat-person" are all included in the broad category of "human." But Quina, specifically, describes themself as "not human," so the Qu are different? How? They're intelligent humanoids who can talk, where is the line drawn!?
Mysteries for later. The discussion is interrupted by the emergence of that most welcome yet unexpected of sights: Actual survivors, fleeing the palace.
Burmecian Soldier Dan: "Who are you!? Are you in league with the black mages!?"
Zidane: "No!"
Dan: "You're lying! There's a black mage right behind you!"
Vivi: "No! I didn't do anything! I'd never hurt anyone!"
Dan: "Lies!"
[Freya stands up.]
Freya: "He's telling the truth!"
Dan: "...Freya!?"
Freya: "It's good to see you, Dan."
Dan: "Damn, I haven't seen you in years! Where've you been? Actually, this isn't the best time to talk!"
Given how every soldier seems to recognize her, Freya must have been kind of a big deal back when she was in Burmecia. She describes herself as a "dragon knight," she sounds like she was part of a special order, but the soldiers don't call her "Ma'am" and salute her either. I think what's most likely is that she was some kind of nobility and a fairly young recruit into an elite order of dragoons, so people knew her because her post was high-visibility but are relatively casual with her because she was still just a teen at the time.
Also, Vivi, I don't know about that "I'd never hurt anyone." You wouldn't hurt anyone innocent but we have at this point a pretty long trail of dead bodies… Admittedly almost all of them were either feral or mindless or the Black Waltzes; I don't think Vivi has ever fought someone who was unambiguously human yet. Well, except Steiner. But that was different.
Dan tells Freya they have to get out of here, black mages are swarming all over the place, then hurries down the stairs with the woman and children following him. When he realizes Freya isn't following him, he backtracks, asking her what the hell she's doing. He tells her to forget about the king and just get out of there, but of course, Freya is resolute, and so they part ways.
Just absolutely stunning environments.
You can see in the above screenshots - I initially assumed that the statues in Burmecia were of rats, but some are clearly other animals; there's a ram in the second screenshot, and the one above looks like some kind of horned lizard figure. I assume they're local deities of some kind.
As we enter this room, which has an enormous statue of a creature holding knives, we run into Wei and Kal, a couple. Wei is begging her husband to come with her, but Kal is too injured to move.
Wei: "Remember this promise we made each other in front of Master Gizzamaluke?"
Kal: "How could I forget… But my only wish now is for you and our child to survive. Please bear a healthy child, darling. Raise him to be strong."
Wei: "Oh, Kal!"
Okay, hold on a minute.
The giant flying water serpent sanctifies marriages!?
God that explains why they call him "Master" but this is wild. I guess it does tie into the apparent pantheon of reptilian beings depicted in statues. I wonder how many reptilian small gods Zorn and Thorn turned against Burmecia or killed with their black mages…
Zidane walks in on the couple, telling them it's not safe and they need to get to Lindblum, but they tell him Kal is too injured. Zidane approaches to check on his injuries…
…which proves to be serendipitous, as this is the exact moment when the fragilized right-hand pillar upholding the statue (which you can actually see in the screenshot above is tilted to the side, foreshadowing its fall) gives out, and the statue collapses, nearly crushing Kal to death if it weren't for Zidane pulling him out just in time.
There are two separate entrances to this room, and I find myself wondering if doing it in the wrong order might not lead to failing to save Kal (and possibly Wei as well). Pretty grim if so.
As it stands, we did save them, and they thank us, shortly before another Burmecian named Gray walks in - just the providential man we need, as between him and Wei, they'll be able to actually move Kal.
Kal: "Thanks again, pal. Maybe I'll see you again in Lindblum. By then, my kids'll be born. You definitely have to come and see them."
Zidane: "Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Take care."
Once again: Zidane is shockingly capable of the casual kind of conversation and comfort that lightens the stress of a tough situation, and of just being nice to people, compared to our last two protags. This whole beat is honestly a welcome bit of light in what's a pretty oppressive dungeon in which we arrive after the battle and follow the aftermath of a brutal, one-sided massacre.
"Rat genocide" was not something I expected in my Final Fantasy game. I'm honestly surprised that so far the game hasn't really used any of the cultural associations fantasy typically gives to rat people. I don't even mean that they're usually evil; even when, say, Nezumi in MtG are portrayed as cute and clever and likeable, it's usually in the way a cute furry rodent who's too clever for its own good would be. By contrast, the Burmecians appear to just be… People. Freya herself is a stern, noble knight who affects a sophisticated and formal attitude that makes her sound older than she actually is and hides how vulnerable she is underneath it, which are not particularly rat-like traits. And that's good!
…
This is something I've talked about before in the context of writing about Exalted: In Exalted, there are people known as "beastfolk." They're your classic anthropomorphic animals: wolfmen, snakefolk, shark-people. But crucially, beastfolk are, metaphysically, human. They have human souls and human minds and are descended from baseline humans, though their physiology differs. And that means beastfolk have the full scope of human thought, emotion, and personality. Yet, as a writer, it's always easier to default to cultural shorthand. If you have a bullman character, it's natural to make him gruff, hard-headed, and not afraid of a fight. It's the obvious immediate association, and if you deviate from it, you find yourself wondering why they're even a bullman in the first place. That's probably why our iconic snakeman in previous edition was a crime lord.
And the answer is that there is no reason and there doesn't need to be. You are depicting the breadth of humanity in Exalted's setting, and reminding the readers of beastfolk humanity. That can mean deliberately doing the opposite of expectations by having your bullman be a sensitive coward who is easily swayed by arguments, but that in itself kind of plays in the stereotype by reminding the reader that you're doing Opposite Day with this character. Better is to detach them entirely. This sheepfolk is a cold-eyed mercenary, this sharkman is a simple fishmonger who is neither violently aggressive nor afraid of blood, this bearman is a poet, this wolfwoman is a traveling merchant. They're just people who happen to be the way they are. That doesn't mean it's wrong to write a lion-man who is a brave and ferocious warrior, just that it's useful to sometimes pull back from the 1:1 figurative species : personality layer. And I think that's something Burmecia has been doing well so far, for, uh, what little we have seen of them.
…
With the family heading for safety, we head for an upper gallery, where we loot a bunch of chests and run into another mimic, before heading out to the highest level of the city.
God, this is grim. How'd they even manage to break the fountain? These black mages must have just been firing spells wantonly in all directions.
Cut for image count.
BEATRIX
I am prepar'd: here is my keen-edg'd sword,
Deck'd with five flower-de-luces on each side;
The which at Touraine, in Saint Katharine's churchyard,
Out of a great deal of old iron I chose forth.
ZIDANE
Then come, o' God's name; I fear no woman.
BEATRIX
And, while I live, I'll ne'er fly from a man.
[They fight.]
ZIDANE
Stay, stay thy hands! thou art an Amazon,
And fightest with the sword of Deborah.
BEATRIX
Christ's mother helps me, else I were too weak.
[Lights out; a DRAGON roars.]
Last time, we made it to the end of Gizamaluke's Grotto, but before we could go on, we moved to Steinert and Dagger's wacky adventures at the South Gate to Alexandria, which is where we pick up today.
I. I Have Officially Given Up On Keeping Track Of "Gates"
This entire section is basically just a series of skits. It starts here, where the guards ask Steiner what the purpose of his visit and he claims he's here for work since they're recruiting workers to fix the gate (which the guards accept at face value despite him being, y'know, a fully armored knight) but they have to check his bag. This leads to a back and forth where Steiner is reluctant to open it (since it's obvious Dagger is inside), but when the guard finally does open the bag, he is instead instantly repulsed by a terrible force:
The smell of many, many jars of Lindblum pickles.
The guards quickly move Steiner on through the gate without bothering to dig further into the bag, and Steiner is soon inside.
Once we're inside the gate fort, Steiner still needs to find a hidden spot for Dagger to come out. There's a side alley that's suitable, but unfortunately, two people are standing in the way, so we need to get them to leave. We do this by alerting them to things that draw their attention elsewhere, one of which is…
…
Worker: "This gate breaks down a lot, 'cause the hinges don't fit very well. This road leads to the bottom of the Mist. No one uses it. There's no need to fix it, really. So, I just polish the gate and make it look all nice. That takes care of it for a couple months. Hee hee."
Upon realizing that this lazy bum is the reason we had to go through the Ice Cavern and Dali and an airship hijacking because the gates were closed, Steiner hilariously has a dialogue choice that is labeled "Kill!" and "Don't kill". If we select "Kill!" Steiner nearly goes to murder the guy before catching himself and saying he almost lost control of himself. Thankfully, we can still take revenge by alerting the chief engineer to the anteater dude's deceit, which causes him to run off to have a word with him.
In the process we learn something interesting: Since Mist engines are reliant on, well, Mist, and this is "the Mist Continent," airships aren't actually able to venture outside of this continent. The rest of the world is "uncharted territory." It's only now that Cid is developing the first steam-powered airships that Lindblum stands on the cusp of exploring the rest of the planet. Curiously, this means that the inhabitants of the Mist Continent haven't explored by sea either; there was a bit of dialogue with Minister Artania earlier that implied that since the development of airships and the Mist covering all sea level locations, all ship traffic in the Mist Continent basically stopped.
If we look past the bright aesthetics, we're actually looking at a setting that basically just managed to pull together from an apocalyptic event that more or less shut down trade and travel in the past few decades thanks to the development of Mist engines.
The other person, "Part-Time Worker Mary," is distracted from her post by talking to her about her… Son? I think? "Jobless Jeff," whose magic item shop went bankrupt recently. It's a nice chance to look at how Steiner does "consoling people":
Steiner: [Angrily.] "What good is it to bemoan what has already happened?" [He makes himself calm down.] "Wh-What I meant to say was that… Now that we are here, there must be things we can do to help the ones we love."
Part-Time Worker Mary: "You're right. I gotta encourage him."
He's trying his best, bless him.
Just as we head for the alley, though, the gate guard comes back and calls out to Steiner.
This is another skit where the game plays up the tension of the guard having seemingly figured something out and giving Steiner orders to approach but stay away, before it turns out that he actually just forgot to hand him a Gate Pass to move on through and the reason he's acting so weird is because he doesn't want to approach Steiner and his smelly pickles.
Steiner actually quotes a line from I Want To Be Your Canary to signal that the way is clear. Dagger gets out and is, understandably, complaining about the smell, and takes a moment to change her clothes (we have a dialogue option that seems to imply Steiner might accidentally peep on her by turning around too early? I didn't take it), though, amusingly, she changes into… The exact same outfit. I guess she has several sets of the exact same overalls and shirt. When he turns around, Steiner reflexively salutes the princess and calls her by her title, before correcting himself, and she reminds him that until they're back at the castle he must call her Dagger.
Which.
Is the part where I must ask why they are doing all of this.
Like… Garnet is, in fact, the Princess of Alexandria, and Steiner is, in fact, a legitimate captain of a knight corps who is escorting her back to the castle.
The reason they tried to keep Garnet's identity a secret before was because Alexandrian agents were actively trying to get her back to Alexandria. Which is… What she's trying to do now. There is no reason for them to maintain secrecy. Their interests align. If anything, saying "hi I'm Princess Garnet and I'm trying to get back to the castle" would get them there faster.
I suppose it could be that Garnet, having seen the Black Waltzes, is worried that publicly announcing herself might result in some psychotic wizard mutant blowing up half the town around her just because, even though she'd be agreeing to go back to Alexandria. But I think the real reason…
Is that Garnet wants to be Dagger. She's gotten a little in love with the romanticism of the road, of her new secret identity, of moving through the world unseen as a Secret Magical Princess.
This cable car has a mechanical unicorn figurehead several meters tall? What? This is incredible. That's so fucking extra.
Dagger: "We're almost there, Steiner. Alexandria is just beyond the summit, right? I managed it without Zidane's help!"
Steiner: "You never needed him to begin with, Princess."
Dagger: "....."
Before boarding the cable car, we have a chance to save, rest, buy some items at the shop, grab a letter from the Moogle, an item from the chest, and, my favorite part, check out a sign that shows us a profile view of the cable car path way so that we can finally make some sense of Alexandria's geography:
Alexandria itself is standing on a plateau at at the top of the Aerbs Mountains; reaching this plateau requires passing through Bohden Gate, boarding the cable car, getting off at Aerbs Alexandria Station, and then passing through either Treno Gate or Dali Gate, whereupon we reach the lake where Alexandria is located. It's very… Linear.
Dali Gate was located near the Village of Dali, which was a small rural village; by contrast, Treno Gate is located near Treno, which is "the city of nobles," which sounds much fancier; that's where Steiner and Dagger are heading.
I think we don't talk enough about how absolutely massive Dagger's forehead is.
As we enter, Part-Time Worker Mary comes on, and she thanks Steiner for his help; he tells her that he thanks her, which confuses her, and then he takes his seat.
Then Steiner delivers a classic "yeah stuff happened off-screen don't worry about it" moment:
Dagger: "Phew… I feel more relaxed now."
Steiner: "That is understandable. Our journey from Lindblum was very tough. But it was your white magic that helped me through the battles against all those monsters, your fortitude that got us past the obnoxious moogles in Chocobo's Forest, and finally, your idea to use gysahl pickles to get past the South Gate guards! I am impressed by your intelligence and courage, Princess!"
Dagger: "Steiner, you can't call me that."
Steiner: "My apologies. I'm just not used to…"
Dagger: "It's okay. I made lots of mistake when Zidane taught me how to talk like this."
Steiner: "That peasant had no manners whatsoever! Although… He did have some wit for a bumpkin, but… The way he spoke to you was simply unacceptable! I say good riddance."
There's a lot I like about this. Steiner making it clear that they were still playing the same game we were even when off-screen, having to deal with random encounters and the like, reinforcing that Dagger is kind of into the whole rogue thing and coming up with her own ideas for sneaking around, and confirming that yes, indeed, moogles do think Dagger is ugly and as a result Zidane missed out on a clue as to the path she took.
But the funniest part to me? Is that with the Lindblum sequence we just saw for ourselves that Steiner is the country bumpkin who is completely lost in the big city, while Zidane is the street urchin from the big city and much more socially adroit (if, as we saw multiple times, prone to putting his foot in his mouth the moment he approaches a girl).
Dagger makes no reply, and one gets the impression that she just thinks that telling Steiner Zidane was actually being helpful is not a battle worth fighting. Plus, she's probably still mad at him for planning to leave her behind.
Still, there is one unforgivable mistake on this scene's part:
It tells us that Steiner and Dagger got into monster fights off-screen, and they have no XP to show for it. They're still lv 7! How could you!
Thus we leave the Alexandrian duo as the cable car makes its slow way up the mountain, and return to Gizamaluke's Grotto, where things are about to be… Significantly less cheery.
Freya attempts to rouse the soldier, but with his last strength he simply tells her to not worry about him and to protect Burmecia, dying before he can finish his sentence. Freya, visibly distraught, promises that she will, and then the whole group leaves the grotto.
We're back on the world map, staring at a somewhat more ominous environment than before, with dark peaks and long stretches of barren ground.
So what's next? Well…
II. Vamo'alla Flamenco [Extended, One Hour]
Of course, we immediately turn around and go back all the way through the grotto so that we can play some more Chocobo Hot & Cold. Burmecia will be fine, it's just a short delay.
What? Look, there are more chocographs I haven't uncovered yet! I need to find them! And all it will take me is…
…
About an hour of fruitless efforts.
Turns out there's more than two Chocographs to be found. But most of them are for areas I can't actually access yet, like this Cold field chocograph, or a chocograph for a location that says it requires me to be able to fly. It seems like the game just randomizes chocograph finds, so that there is absolutely no guarantee that I will land on the graph for the area I'm currently in. So after a while, I eventually give up. It wasn't exactly fruitless - we're basically cash positive from the loot we found playing the game, but it's still disappointing.
Also we fight that dragon at one point. Please keep its visual design in mind, it'll be relevant again at the very end of this update.
So we head back through Gizamaluke's Grotto. In the process, I follow the thread's advice to check out a vine in the moogle room.
It leads to a high place above the Mist, with two forests! Neat! There must be something unique to be found here, so let's check it out-
…
We run into two Garuda birds who spam Stop until half the party is frozen in time and then kill the remainder with an AoE attack that deletes all their HP in one attack, leading to our first game over.
Extremely funny, guys.
Alright, reload and let's finally head back to Burmecia.
First, before heading to the big city, let's check out surrounding locations. As we might expect, there's another Gate.
Once again, we are on the other side of a gate beyond which some battle occurred and the place was razed. I think it might be the same one as with the Gate near Alexandria? But I genuinely struggle to make sense of the geography involved here, this is just confusing to me.
Freya: "The smell of fire… and blood! There must have been a huge battle on the other side of that gate…"
[Quina enters.]
Quina: "Something smell bad. I get bad feeling!" [Quinna approaches the flower patch.] "Flower smell good! You smell flower!" [They start smelling the flowers.]
Freya: "...Quina does whatever s/he feels like doing. I must learn from his ways."
Zidane: "I don't think it's intentional, Freya."
[Freya turns around, kneeling.]
Freya: "No, if I had done as I pleased, I would've been…"
Quina: "Zidane, this flower taste good!"
Zidane: "See what I mean?"
Honestly it's cute that Freya looks at Quina and sees someone whose carefree attitude and pursuit of their own desire is genuinely to be respected and even emulated, I wasn't expecting that.
Oh also there is a giant sand tornado out in the desert that we can't enter.
I don't know what to tell you, it is what it is! Likely a mystery we'll explore later.
Of note is that there are Chocobo tracks in this region, so we can call up Choco to ride him around, which is another point for my "the devs realized world encounters are obnoxious" theory.
Alright.
Let's confront bleak reality.
III. Into the Realm of Rain and Sorrow
This upturned apple barrel is a great portent of things to come.
Zidane calls for Freya to approach, and she is clearly reluctant; as she approaches the city gate, she goes down to one knee.
Zidane: "So… This is Freya's home…"
Freya: "It's been five years… I've been away for so long. Not a night went by when I didn't dream about home. I can't believe I'm here…"
Freya: "I am no longer the selfish child I was five years ago." [She rises.] "The time has come to serve my kingdom as a Burmecian dragon knight once again!"
Zidane: "I'll do what I can to help!"
Quina: "I help, too!"
Vivi: "Me, too!"
"Realm of Eternal Rain" is a sick title, I won't lie.
As they pass the gate, Freya pauses briefly, wondering "What can I do for my kingdom" before admonishing herself that now is not the time.
I get the impression that Freya is harder on herself than she actually deserves for whatever misspent youth she left behind. Five years is… She's 21, right? So she would have left at 16 - the age Zidane is now. That definitely puts a particular perspective on their relationship.
So, Burmecia.
That place has known better days.
It's a beautiful place, with a unique style of architecture compared to Alexandria and Lindblum - one of the most notable is the prominent display of statuary, some depicting rats, but also other anthropomorphic animals, in a way that suggests religious veneration.
It's also desolated, with cards and supplies turned over, and it gets worse the further we go in. It can be hard to parse on these screens, but dead Burmecia lie strewn across the street all throughout town. Beside them, the streets appear empty, and indeed, the army of black mage is not anywhere in sight; it looks like they pushed through into the town in one brutal sweep towards the center, not dispersing to seize control of places or loot it.
That is not to say that they're actually empty.
Monsters roam the streets. It's likely that they came in with the Mist - unlike Alexandria and Lindblum, Burmecia is below Mist level, so the city must have relied on its walls to protect itself from monsters; when the black mages broke in, they left the city wide open for all kinds of creatures.
I suspect most of the casualties among the civilian populations will be the fruit of monster attacks. The city is basically entirely lost. This is a matter of evacuating survivors, not reclaiming the place.
As with the grotto before, encounter variety is low. The Magic Vices are a long-term threat; their special ability, Magic Hammer, depletes MP considerably, which threatens my ability to carry out battles and drains my Ether supply. They are otherwise not exceptionally dangerous, though it takes me a while to manage to get one at just the HP level required for Quina to eat it and learn Magic Hammer themself, as their HP is low and it's easy to overshoot it. The Basilisks here can inflict Gradual Petrify, though thankfully fights are over too quickly for it to matter.
As we approach the center of town, we run into familiar faces.
Zorn: "It is them again!"
Thorn: "Most persistent, they are!"
Zorn & Thorn: "Black mages!"
The Black Mages are still not much more of a threat than they were last time. Of note is that with the Ice Staff stolen from Gizzamaluke, Vivi is now able to cast Blizzara, which is a massive escalation in power - our boy has gone from "falling dramatically behind the physical attackers" to "deal around 1000 damage per spell." Yeesh.
Once the black mages have been dispatched, Zorn and Thorn flail angrily.
Zorn: "The general will punish you for this!"
Thorn: "Yes! Very scary, it is, when the general gets mad!"
Hm. Okay, so we have a 'general' to be looking out for, likely the boss at the end of the city. Curious what that'll be about. With the way clear, we can explore some of the ruined homes of Burmecia - and have to, in order to progress, as the path to get all the items and stuff is a little circuitous.
As we approach this chest, however, we run into something I totally did not expect…
A mimic! That's cute. The old games had "monsters-in-a-box," but this is the first game in which we get a proper mimic, with the whole animated chest thing. There are more than one of these; the first thing they always do in combat is ring a bell to summon an additional monster, always a Magic Vice.
This battle ends up taking much, much longer than you'd expect. This is the one where I try to eat the Magic Vice, but the problem is, when its HP falls too low, the Magic Vice escapes. So I have to reload multiple times. Which gives me ample opportunity to look at the fairly horrifying animation for the Mimic's own Eat command:
It grabs one of our characters, squeezes them into a ball, swallows and chews up that ball, then spits it out amidst a shower of gil. Fortunately, unlike Quina's Eat, this isn't an instant removal from battle, it just deals damage.
Honestly it's a shame we're seeing Burmecia in this state. The place has an Art Nouveau vibe that I really dig. Look at this mural:
Real belle époque hours.
There are multiple Burmecians we can 'interact' with. All of them only 'say' this: "...." It's grim.
Eventually, we find a survivor - a wounded soldier, sitting in a ruined apartment.
He indicates to us where to find a bell to open the way to the palace, and then succumbs to his injuries. We retrieve the "Protection Bell" stashed under the bed, and then, we head upstairs, towards the palace quarter.
IV. If You Save But One Life, It Will Have Been Worth It
Freya: "Zidane…" [They all turn to her.] "Burmecia's royal palace is beyond these steps. It must be in ruins, just like everything else. I can't bear to see it like that…"
Zidane: "I understand, but we can't go back now. We have to find out who's behind this."
Vivi: "...I wanna find out who those guys were… and why I look like them."
Zidane: "Look, Vivi's scared, too. But we have to face reality."
Vivi: "Come on, Freya. It'll be okay…"
[Freya approaches Vivi and crouches in front of him.]
Freya: "Vivi… Do you really know what you're doing? The answer you seek may change your life for the worse.]
Vivi: "Um….. Y-Yeah… But… But I have to… I have to find out who I am… I'm scared… What if I'm not even human?"
SOMEONE HUG THIS POOR CHILD
Freya: "Vivi…"
Quina: "What you talking about? I not human, but you definitely human!"
Quina. Quina please.
God actually this raises so many questions. Like, "human" in FF9 is clearly a broad term: When Vivi asks if he's even human he's clearly not saying it in a way that suggests Freya is not human, despite her being a rat-person. So "human," "human with a monkey tail," and "rat-person" are all included in the broad category of "human." But Quina, specifically, describes themself as "not human," so the Qu are different? How? They're intelligent humanoids who can talk, where is the line drawn!?
Mysteries for later. The discussion is interrupted by the emergence of that most welcome yet unexpected of sights: Actual survivors, fleeing the palace.
Burmecian Soldier Dan: "Who are you!? Are you in league with the black mages!?"
Zidane: "No!"
Dan: "You're lying! There's a black mage right behind you!"
Vivi: "No! I didn't do anything! I'd never hurt anyone!"
Dan: "Lies!"
[Freya stands up.]
Freya: "He's telling the truth!"
Dan: "...Freya!?"
Freya: "It's good to see you, Dan."
Dan: "Damn, I haven't seen you in years! Where've you been? Actually, this isn't the best time to talk!"
Given how every soldier seems to recognize her, Freya must have been kind of a big deal back when she was in Burmecia. She describes herself as a "dragon knight," she sounds like she was part of a special order, but the soldiers don't call her "Ma'am" and salute her either. I think what's most likely is that she was some kind of nobility and a fairly young recruit into an elite order of dragoons, so people knew her because her post was high-visibility but are relatively casual with her because she was still just a teen at the time.
Also, Vivi, I don't know about that "I'd never hurt anyone." You wouldn't hurt anyone innocent but we have at this point a pretty long trail of dead bodies… Admittedly almost all of them were either feral or mindless or the Black Waltzes; I don't think Vivi has ever fought someone who was unambiguously human yet. Well, except Steiner. But that was different.
Dan tells Freya they have to get out of here, black mages are swarming all over the place, then hurries down the stairs with the woman and children following him. When he realizes Freya isn't following him, he backtracks, asking her what the hell she's doing. He tells her to forget about the king and just get out of there, but of course, Freya is resolute, and so they part ways.
Just absolutely stunning environments.
You can see in the above screenshots - I initially assumed that the statues in Burmecia were of rats, but some are clearly other animals; there's a ram in the second screenshot, and the one above looks like some kind of horned lizard figure. I assume they're local deities of some kind.
As we enter this room, which has an enormous statue of a creature holding knives, we run into Wei and Kal, a couple. Wei is begging her husband to come with her, but Kal is too injured to move.
Wei: "Remember this promise we made each other in front of Master Gizzamaluke?"
Kal: "How could I forget… But my only wish now is for you and our child to survive. Please bear a healthy child, darling. Raise him to be strong."
Wei: "Oh, Kal!"
Okay, hold on a minute.
The giant flying water serpent sanctifies marriages!?
God that explains why they call him "Master" but this is wild. I guess it does tie into the apparent pantheon of reptilian beings depicted in statues. I wonder how many reptilian small gods Zorn and Thorn turned against Burmecia or killed with their black mages…
Zidane walks in on the couple, telling them it's not safe and they need to get to Lindblum, but they tell him Kal is too injured. Zidane approaches to check on his injuries…
…which proves to be serendipitous, as this is the exact moment when the fragilized right-hand pillar upholding the statue (which you can actually see in the screenshot above is tilted to the side, foreshadowing its fall) gives out, and the statue collapses, nearly crushing Kal to death if it weren't for Zidane pulling him out just in time.
There are two separate entrances to this room, and I find myself wondering if doing it in the wrong order might not lead to failing to save Kal (and possibly Wei as well). Pretty grim if so.
As it stands, we did save them, and they thank us, shortly before another Burmecian named Gray walks in - just the providential man we need, as between him and Wei, they'll be able to actually move Kal.
Kal: "Thanks again, pal. Maybe I'll see you again in Lindblum. By then, my kids'll be born. You definitely have to come and see them."
Zidane: "Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Take care."
Once again: Zidane is shockingly capable of the casual kind of conversation and comfort that lightens the stress of a tough situation, and of just being nice to people, compared to our last two protags. This whole beat is honestly a welcome bit of light in what's a pretty oppressive dungeon in which we arrive after the battle and follow the aftermath of a brutal, one-sided massacre.
"Rat genocide" was not something I expected in my Final Fantasy game. I'm honestly surprised that so far the game hasn't really used any of the cultural associations fantasy typically gives to rat people. I don't even mean that they're usually evil; even when, say, Nezumi in MtG are portrayed as cute and clever and likeable, it's usually in the way a cute furry rodent who's too clever for its own good would be. By contrast, the Burmecians appear to just be… People. Freya herself is a stern, noble knight who affects a sophisticated and formal attitude that makes her sound older than she actually is and hides how vulnerable she is underneath it, which are not particularly rat-like traits. And that's good!
…
This is something I've talked about before in the context of writing about Exalted: In Exalted, there are people known as "beastfolk." They're your classic anthropomorphic animals: wolfmen, snakefolk, shark-people. But crucially, beastfolk are, metaphysically, human. They have human souls and human minds and are descended from baseline humans, though their physiology differs. And that means beastfolk have the full scope of human thought, emotion, and personality. Yet, as a writer, it's always easier to default to cultural shorthand. If you have a bullman character, it's natural to make him gruff, hard-headed, and not afraid of a fight. It's the obvious immediate association, and if you deviate from it, you find yourself wondering why they're even a bullman in the first place. That's probably why our iconic snakeman in previous edition was a crime lord.
And the answer is that there is no reason and there doesn't need to be. You are depicting the breadth of humanity in Exalted's setting, and reminding the readers of beastfolk humanity. That can mean deliberately doing the opposite of expectations by having your bullman be a sensitive coward who is easily swayed by arguments, but that in itself kind of plays in the stereotype by reminding the reader that you're doing Opposite Day with this character. Better is to detach them entirely. This sheepfolk is a cold-eyed mercenary, this sharkman is a simple fishmonger who is neither violently aggressive nor afraid of blood, this bearman is a poet, this wolfwoman is a traveling merchant. They're just people who happen to be the way they are. That doesn't mean it's wrong to write a lion-man who is a brave and ferocious warrior, just that it's useful to sometimes pull back from the 1:1 figurative species : personality layer. And I think that's something Burmecia has been doing well so far, for, uh, what little we have seen of them.
…
With the family heading for safety, we head for an upper gallery, where we loot a bunch of chests and run into another mimic, before heading out to the highest level of the city.
God, this is grim. How'd they even manage to break the fountain? These black mages must have just been firing spells wantonly in all directions.
Cut for image count.
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Final Fantasy IX, Part 8.B: Sorrows of Burmecia (End of Disc 1)
New
- Location
- Brittany, France
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So, it's bleak, but let's look on the bright side: There's a moogle in one of those houses!
Look at that statue in the back. That's definitely a lizard with a headdress. It's also… Hm.
This room is full of loot, and the invaders didn't take any.
…
We haven't really touched upon this, but the attack is being done with only black mages, isn't it? There is zero mention of any Alexandria soldiers. It's Zorn, Thorn, the General, and then an army of mindless killer dolls.
You'd think an army of mindless black mages would work better supported by infantry. There's only one reason I can imagine why you would attack with black mages alone: Plausible deniability. This is a covert op. No one in Alexandria knows that Queen Brahne led a devastating attack on Burmecia, and when the news trickle to them, she'll deny everything. That, and the concern that Alexandrian soldiers might object to a totally unprovoked invasion of a friendly nation.
And black mages don't care for loot. So the riches of Burmecia just sit there in the empty, rain-splattered homes of its dead people.
We deliver a letter to the local moogle (it informs us that Stiltzkin travels with a map of the entire world and rare items, so we definitely want to catch up with him eventually), and he thanks us by giving us a Kupo Nut, then another letter to carry.
He also has a shop! Called the Mogshop, it is extremely welcome and allows us to improve our gear and stock on supplies ahead of what's no doubt going to be a boss battle.
There's another abandoned building we can explore. It looks to be an armory, and as we enter, Freya starts looking for anything we might actually use.
As it turns out, at the back end of the room is another massive statue holding a spear.
She picks up the spear, and tests it with a thrust, commenting that it is light and easy to use. And no wonder: it's a mythril spear, which is immediately added to our inventory, where I immediately remember to equip it and do not forget until after the end of this update, that didn't happen.
Zidane feels the hype of the moment. Freya has entered the dragon knights armories, and she has found a mythril spear, they are stronger now, this calls for a bit of spirit-rousing commentary. Zidane, what you got?
Legendary.
UNDEFEATED Foot-in-Mouth Style Master. No one does it like Zidane.
I just, I need you to see the Slump of Total Misery that Vivi does when he hears this:
They call him the most expressive faceless puppet boy ever designed by man.
Zidane: "Come on. You know I don't mean you."
Vivi: "I know…" [He turns to Zidane, struggling to put words together. "But…" [He grabs the sides of his hat and pushes it down lower on his head. "Never mind…"
Zidane: "Vivi…"
[Dialogue ends.]
Incredible. Zidane so totally beefed it that he doesn't even manage a comeback or a reassurance. He really just stabbed Vivi in the heart and totally failed the recovery. God, this was painful to watch.
But now it's time.
We are headed to the palace.
This statue was damaged so thoroughly that it even dropped its giant… Katana? That hilt looks like a katana.
Zidane: "Geez, this is terrible… Freya, I'm sorry, but from the looks of this, I don't think the king made it."
[Freya falls to her knees, and says nothing.]
Here, we have a few dialogue options, though they don't amount to much, and only one leads to the next beat.
Zidane: [I wonder if Dagger's alright…]
Zidane: "I don't think Dagger came here… I wonder where she went…"
Yeah Zidane, no shit. We as an audience of course already know Dagger didn't go to Burmecia, but this is the part that makes it really obvious in-character to Zidane. It's very unlikely that Dagger, with Steiner accompanying her, would have just pushed through all this death and devastation. If she hadn't stopped in horror, she would have stopped to try to help the injured, and if she hadn't, Steiner would have refused to let her go any further with just the two of them.
Zidane: [Talk to her]
Zidane: "I don't know what to tell you… We can only hope that the king and the others escaped."
Freya: "...."
Zidane: [Leave her alone]
Zidane: "Vivi, let's go see what's over there."
[They start leaving; suddenly, Freya stands up.]
Freya: "!!!"
[She jumps to the top of the statue.]
Freya: There's someone inside the palace! What are you waiting for? Get up here."
[She leaps off the top of the statue.]
Zidane: "You make it sound so easy…"
[Zidane starts hopping up onto the statue, then turns to the others.]
Zidane: "Come on."
Vivi: "Um… Okay."
Beautiful.
Zidane: "Oh, man. I'm gonna go ahead. Try to find a way up there. I'll meet you up top."
Quina: "I meet you after I eat food inside palace!"
One thing I am really liking about FF9 is the way it actually portrays the characters using their abilities outside of combat, which shouldn't be such a surprise but really is after VII and VIII. Here, Freya, a dragon knight, easily jumps to the top of the statue in a single leap, because Jump is her class ability. Zidane, who is an agile thief with monkey traits, grumbles and has to actually climb the statue, but still does so with swiftness and agility. Vivi and Quina, however, lack such athleticism, and so they're stuck on the ground having to find the long way round. It's a neat way to show how the various characters' mobility relates to one another.
Soon, Zidane and Freya are making their way up a high gallery, behind a row of statues in robes holding spears (these do look to be rats, not reptilian beings). But more interesting than the statues is what they observe below.
Queen Brahne is here.
So, uh. Yeah, there's nobody home for you to meet, Dagger. Sorry about that.
Freya: "I knew she was behind all this."
Zidane: "What do you mean, you knew?"
Freya: "I decided to return to Burmecia because I heard rumors that Brahne had set her sights on our kingdom."
Zidane: "Then that girl standing next to her must be Beatrix, Alexandria's general."
Freya: "That's Beatrix? The cold-blooded knight who knows no mercy. Beatrix…"
It is obvious from the way she talks about her that Freya is familiar with Beatrix by reputation - not just that, but that she means something to her.
And we're about to find out what.
V. The Sword Saint
And there he is. Sir Fratley, the man Freya has been looking for. A dragon knight clad in a golden outfit, wearing a mask of a helm.
Fratley: "I hear there are many fierce warriors out in the world - some more powerful than even I… Beatrix of Alexandria, in particular. They say her swordsmanship is the best in the land."
Freya: "Sir Fratley, do you still insist on going on your journey?"
Fratley: "Yes… please understand, Freya. Right now, Burmecia is at peace, while other nations are slowly but surely gaining power. I don't know if my spear alone is enough to protect Burmecia… which is precisely why I must go out into the world."
Freya: "Sir Fratley… I don't think I can live on my own - not without you."
Fratley: "Freya, you're going to be fine. Trust your strength… and have faith in your destiny. Once I complete my journey around the world, I will return to Burmecia."
Freya: "Then promise me, one more time, that you will return."
Fratley: "I promise."
[He turns around; Freya falls to her knees in sorrow.]
Freya: Fratley… You never came back… You've left me with nothing except rumors of your death. I couldn't believe it! I still won't believe it! Never. Not until I witness proof of your death with my own eyes. And I will travel across the world forever if I must…
Oh, Freya.
Zidane was the only one who used the word "boyfriend" to describe Fratley, though Freya didn't object. I wonder if that wasn't aspirational, though. She was clearly in love with Fratley, but between the fact that she would have been 16 at the time and that she still called him "Sir Fratley" in private, were they actually a couple, or was she just pining for him from afar?
The fact that the man she's been looking for all these years has been presumed dead the whole time, yet she won't give up her search, does a lot to show us what her character is about - that combination of resolve and denial, of refusing to even admit the possibility, of committing her entire life to proving it wrong, no matter how unlikely. It really does fit for a character who behaves much more seriously and sternly that her age would suggest, yet not in the specific ways that Steiner himself acts, because it's not at all coming from the same place. A commitment to a personal search, rather than duty to an outside cause.
She's left Burmecia behind for that goal, and now she only comes back too late.
Or is it?
Someone approaches below.
Note how the entire rooftop of the palace appears to have been torn away, turning what was probably a throne room into an open-sky arena. This suggests Brahne employed an aerial attack.
Mystery Man: "I find this rain quite pleasant… It feels as though the raindrops are blessing our victory…"
Brahne: "This is a great victory for us. Kuja, your black mages made this conquest so simple. My only concern now is finding the king of Burmecia. We must take care of him once and for all, and prevent these rats from ever rising up again." [She turns to Beatrix.] "Beatrix, what's taking so long?"
Beatrix: "I don't know, Your Majesty. I've ordered Zorn and Thorn to search the perimeter, but there's been no word so far. I will join them and lead the search right away."
[She starts to leave.]
Kuja: "You're wasting your time."
Beatrix: [She pauses and turns around.] "What?"
Kuja: "Rats often look for new homes when they sense an earthquake. They probably moved to the sandy tree house by now… So, you see, it's too late. The king has already turned tail and fled."
Brahne: "Sandy tree house… Surely, you don't mean Cleyra!? It will be quite difficult if they escaped to Cleyra."
Beatrix: "Cleyra… Unless we can get through that sandstorm, it will be impossible to attack them."
Brahne: "Sneaky, little rats! Kuja, what do you think? Surely, with your powers, there must be something you can do."
[Kuja bows gracefully.]
Kuja: "Of course, Your Majesty. I will present you a marvelous display of my power. I am certain you will be most pleased." [He turns to Beatrix, folding his arms.] "I was wondering if you would gather your troops near Cleyra. I'm certain those filthy rats will retaliate in full force, and my black mages may not be enough."
God. Look at him. Listen to him. We won't get a proper look at his outfit until later, but look at that cunty little pose. 'Quite pleasant'? 'Sandy tree house'? 'Marvelous display'? 'I was wondering if'? There's "queer coding" and then there's whatever the fuck this is.
So now we have a name and a face for our mysterious 'benefactor,' the mystery man whose arrival seems to coincide with Queen Brahne's behavior going awry. He's the one who provided the technology to create the black mages, confirming that this wasn't something Alexandria came up with on his own. And he has power - power enough to break through that giant sand cyclone we saw on the map earlier, because that's clearly what Cleyra is.
Queen Brahne is a patsy. This man is the true threat.
We saw Beatrix before only briefly, in the intro, when Steiner rambled about her always one-upping him. But it's clear they're operating on different levels. She led this covert attack using a bunch of killer mage dolls, and does not seem to have the slightest bit of hesitation at the massacre she just committed. It's also… Hm. Put a pin in that.
Above, Zidane and Freya comment on what they're seeing - neither of them recognize Kuja, and they give us a little more info on Cleyra: Called the "City of Illusion," it has remained in isolation for the past hundred years, but it was originally founded by expatriates from Burmecia who cut ties over a "trivial conflict," and raised a large sandstorm to shield themselves. This past connection explains why the king believes he might find safety there.
Suddenly, a new character enters.
A foolhardy Burmecian soldier, looking to throw his life away in a desperate attempt against Queen Brahne's life. But Beatrix interposes herself before the queen can come to harm, and Zidane and Freya, realizing the soldier is about to be killed, jumped down to help him.
It's a terrible, terrible idea.
The Burmecian Soldier boldly proclaims his intent. It's hopeless, but perhaps, in his reckless attempt, he might strike down the queen even as he is killed.
It's this obviously suicidal resolve that makes the next moment so striking. Beatrix, her hand on her sword in a posture ready to draw, says:
Beatrix: "You wish to fight me, Beatrix of Alexandria?"
And the moment she says this, all fight goes out of the man. He stammers her name, 'B-Beatrix?' and stands up straight, abandoning his own fighting stance, utterly dumbstruck.
This is a name that makes even the hopes of the hopeless die. He was ready to die, but now he knows he will never even reach Queen Brahne with his dying stroke.
Beatrix: "I commend your courage, but I will show you no mercy."
God, that's it, we're getting the "honorable but merciless master of the sword" archetype, I am always a sucker for those. And she's a woman this time! That's cool!
Fortunately(?), the party emerge just at this moment.
Zidane: "Hold it!"
Freya: "You'll have to deal with us, first!" [The Burmecian soldier runs past and behind our party.] "We'll take care of this. Go find the king. Protect him with your life."
Burmecian Soldier: "...Thank you, Freya."
[He leaves. Beatrix looks at the party, bemused.]
Beatrix: "Ha ha ha. I've never been more humiliated in my life."
[Everyone falls into combat stances.]
Beatrix: "I once killed a hundred knights single-handedly… To me, you two are nothing more than insects."
Oh no she's so cool - wait did I forget to heal up? Oh. Oh no.
Okay so this is off to an unfortunate start. I just… Forgot to use a tent at the last moogle.
And I forgot to equip Freya with the Mythril Spear.
The HP situation is okay, but I need to immediately start topping up Vivi and Freya's MP so that they can use Black Magic and Lancer, and Zidane as usual takes a few turns to Detect and then Steal, which leaves Quina, who is… Powerful but not reliable. And they start with just not enough HP for Mighty Guard, which would be a real help here. That means Beatrix gets to open up a can of shitwrecking on my party mostly uncontested in the opening.
So what can she do? Well, first, she has basic physical attacks, which are relatively puny. But then…
Thunder Slash, an attack which the game stubbornly refuses to give me any good camera angles of, has Beatrix attack with a lightning sword move dealing a respectable 195 damage.
…
So let's pull out that pin from earlier.
Beatrix is Celes.
She's a general of the evil nation, she has a widespread reputation as not just a deadly swordswoman but a ruthless and cold-blooded general, she fights by combining swordplay and magic. In much the same way as Zorn and Thorn are referencing Kefka without being literally just him, Beatrix references Celes, but we're meeting a Celes before her defection, a Celes who is still the terrible sword of her kingdom. And that means, unfortunately for us, that she hasn't been reset to "starting character level" by the needs of the narrative.
This first Thunder Slash actually has an interesting secondary effect, though…
It triggers Quina's first Trance.
…
Wish that did anything, though.
Quina's Trance is possibly the most useless of all characters so far. Its effects is simple: Normally, Eat only works on enemies below 25%. In Trance, it works on any enemy below 50% HP. Given that Eats instantly takes out any enemy it works on, that could be useful for random encounters… And only that. Bosses can't be Eaten. And as far as I can tell, Quina's Trance does not increase their magic damage or anything.They don't unlock any blue magic. It is effectively worthless in a boss fight.
At least we can analyze what they look like in this form. Their color palette is the same as Vivi's, white and purple; interestingly, their face becomes nearly as much of a dark hole as a Black Mage's. Could this be indicating to some common link between the two? Additionally, there's heraldry on Quina's outfit that resembles Vivi's own, and their chef's hat looks fancier. A fulfilled Quina, who is now a great gourmand of the realm, a famed chef? I think the similarity in color schemes is the more interesting angle here, it's an odd connection.
(Freya entered Trance on the way to Burmecia but it was at the end of a random encounter and I didn't get any good footage out of it so we'll talk about it when it becomes relevant again.)
So, Quina's Trance is useless. Still, they have damaging moves like, hm, Aqua Breath?
Aqua Breath whiffs.
Freya is next with a Lancer that hits for 275 damage, which is decent, except-
Beatrix retaliates with Shock, a sharp blow and a wave of light dealing nearly as much damage as Freya's max HP. Given that she went in injured, she instantly goes down. Fuck.
I have Quina throw a Phoenix Down at Freya to get her back up, and Quina's Trance runs out - not that it did us much good anyway.
But then, small mercies. Beatrix decides that she takes my raising the character she just downed personally, and decides to pick on Freya again…
The Coral Ring absorbs lightning damage.
It's all good now. Vivi is back to max MP and can start throwing Blizzara soon. Zidane just grabbed the Phoenix Down off Beatrix, freeing the way for her much more attractive two other Steals: Chain Plate and Mythril Sword. We don't even need any save-scumming for the Chain Plate, it drops immediately, and then we blast Beatrix for as much damage as possible.
And she kinda took this personally.
Beatrix's second Shock instantly takes out Quina with 756 damage. I attempt to give us some room to work by using Zidane's Soul Blade to blind her - and Beatrix reveals that she is immune to Darkness, and then-
God, she's so fucking cool.
OKAY, NEVER MIND, THIS IS FINE. Vivi is down, Quina is barely up, there's still a drop but no matter how many times I repeat the steal varying the timing it doesn't fucking drop (judging from past conversations, it's got a base 1/256 drop chance), so I give up and decide to have Zidane move onto the attack, and Beatrix retaliates by taking out Quina again. I raise Vivi and-
Oh god he's dead again.
I still have two party members, Freya is up in the air where she's safe from attacks until she lands, this is fine -
OH NOW YOU GIVE ME A CLOSE-UP SHOT
Stock Break is definitely some kind of Limit Break. Beatrix shouts "You're no match for me!" and then hits the party with a sword wave that hits everyone and brings Zidane and Freya (my only two surviving characters) down to 1 HP.
This causes Zidane to enter Trance, which, as it turns out, will not matter.
The battle ends.
I'm fairly certain that it's pure coincidence that the damage from Beatrix's "total HP-1 damage" finishing move brought Zidane into Trance, but in a way it's almost perfect; she unveils her super move, wipes the floor with the party, Zidane goes into his super mode… And it's still not enough, he still can barely keep standing at all.
More on that in a moment.
Oh come off it lady, we pushed you far enough to use a Limit Break, don't sass us.
Beatrix: "How ridiculously weak… Isn't there anyone who is worthy of facing me?"
Brahne: "Come, Beatrix. We must prepare to attack Cleyra."
Beatrix: "Yes, Your Majesty."
[They leave. Kuja makes his way more slowly, pausing to observe the party; only Zidane is still on his knees, the others down.]
Kuja: "Now, what do we have here…? Another filthy rat, and… Hmm… This boy could become a problem."
Kuja saw Zidane, and instantly decided that out of all four, he is the one who could be a problem for his plan, definitely is our first major alarm bell ringing that there is more to Zidane than meets the eye. What that "more" could be, who knows; but he's definitely drawn the attention of the white-haired pretty boy. But now.
It's cutscene time.
VI. If I Grit My Teeth And Lie I Can Pretend Sephiroth Was Hotter
Notice how Quina isn't in this cutscene; they're an optional character so they gave them the ol' Yuffie/Vincent treatment and just kinda dropped them out of the big dramatic ending FMV.
Vivi is unconscious. Zidane is down, half-seated but visibly to tired and injured to actually stand up. But Freya! Freya is face down, visibly struggling to manage to lift her head from the ground so she can at least look at the faces of the ones who have destroyed her home.
Kuja's shadow stretches on the ancient patterned floors of Burmecia's throne room. His feet appear in the frame first. Then Freya manages to lift up her head, and look at him.
And there he is.
The sluttiest villain in Final Fantasy history.
No, seriously, look at this fucking outfit - that's not even a crop top! That top goes as far as his tits! The """skirt"" that's literally a shred of fabric tied to a fucking, codpiece? The slits in his dress so he can have visible hips? His hair is wet so he flips a lock out of his face-
This guy would have "I AM THE MAIN ANTAGONIST OF THIS GAME" tattoo'd over his face even if he wasn't staring at you in the Dissidia character selection menu as FF9's villain representative. That's not "spoilers" that's "pattern recognition."
Anyway the important takeaway here is that as a straight man, this has no effect on me. Whatsoever. At all.
Ahem. Where was I?
And there we have Freya's screen capture from her character quote, struggling, and failing, to stand up and challenge Kuja as he leaves.
Oh yeah then Kuja takes off RIDING A FUCKING DRAGON-
And that's where we get the prompt to save our game.
Because yes, my friends.
This is where Disc 1 ends.
So, that was Disc 1.
…
Wait a minute, that was Disc 1? What?
Let me just check - okay, Disc 1 of FF7 took 23 updates. Now granted that's because of how VII worked; the game was incredibly front-loaded and Disc 3 was pretty much vestigial. But it still took us 12 updates to get to the end of Disc 1 of FF8!
This is Update 8.
The construction is familiar - we have a big dramatic dungeon representing a massive swing in the game's tone (Burmecia is incredibly bleak compared to most of the game up to that point), an overwhelming boss fight against a major antagonist who 'wins' even if we win the mechanical boss fight (Sephiroth flies away after killing Aerith, Ultimedea takes Squall out with her Limit Break, Beatrix wipes the floor with everyone while Kuja is watching), it follows the beats.
But it's so short. And Kuja has just been introduced, we know next to nothing about him, unlike Sephiroth or Edea.
To my surprise, we are still relatively on track with VIII level-wise; we fought Edea at around lv 15, vs lv 13 for this game. Still shorter, but not all that much. But in terms of narrative length this feels wildly shorter. Actually let me quickly check-
Yeah. Disc 1 of FF8 took 16 hours. Disc 1 of FF9 took 11:30. It genuinely is shorter by about a whole third.
I wasn't expecting that.
But hey! Length isn't everything. And as a climactic chapter for this disc, Burmecia was kind of fantastic. No wonder Freya's theme is "Sorrow"; she went into this as one woman searching the world for her teenage crush whom everyone thinks is dead, refusing to acknowledge that possibility until she could see his body with her own eyes, and now she's lost her entire people.
The massacre of Burmecia is of such relentless brutality that I don't think it would be excessive to call it a genocide. Beatrix, Zorn, Thorn, and their army of black mages, killing men and women alike, civilians and combatants altogether, and their goal was not to take hold of the city and obtain surrender; they were clearly out to slay the royal family and ensure Burmecia would never rise as a power again. They were neither trying to hold the city nor claim its riches (though they might, opportunistically; it just wasn't the driving goal).
And all of it is set in the "Realm of Eternal Rain," this overcast kingdom where rain follows us the entire time, with this grand but haunting, sorrowful music the entire time. The city itself is beautiful, a combination of the delicate flowery motifs of Art Nouveau and omnipresent, massive statuary commemorating figures unknown to us because we walk among the corpses of their citizens.
It does feel a little bit like we left Dagger behind a while ago - she got one brief, mostly comedic scene at the cable car to remind us she exists, but she's by now lv 7 when our party is lv 13, which gives you an idea of how much gameplay we've had without her (or Steiner) at this point. But hey, it's given us a chance to play a lot with Quina! And frankly they're a character I might have disregarded if they'd joined and immediately given us the option to leave them out in favor of someone else, just because they take time to really make useful, but having them as a quasi-mandatory party member and taking a little time to find them good meals has really made them into a valuable member of the team.
Even if their Trance is terrible.
And now we have our Mandatory Bishie Antagonist. I am curious where the game is taking this - I mean, beyond the obvious, "attacking the city in the sandstorm." But yeah, there's not much else for me to say for now.
Aside from one thing.
I want to talk about the Beatrix fight.
We've talked before about forced losses in RPGs and how tricky they are to handle. Here, I think the loss against Beatrix worked well, and that's for one main reason:
Because I'm a dumbass.
I fucked around and found out. I forgot to equip my shiny new spear, forgot to use a Tent, and walked into this fight like I was Vegeta showing up to Final Form Frieza with a smug smirk and instantly got my shit rocked. The fight was genuinely a struggle because Beatrix's blitz moves kept taking out my characters and I kept wasting turns raising them until we hit the timer on her enrage and she said "I'm bored now" and mowed down everyone in a single strike.
What happens if we don't do that?
We walk into the fight with full HP and MP, Freya uses her new Mythril Spear's ability, Reis's Wind (Final Fantasy Tactics reference?) to cast Regen on everyone, Quina casts Mighty Guard granting everyone Protect and Shield, at which point Beatrix's attacks are completely unable to take out my characters; she breaks her sword on Vivi, triggering Trance, and he dualcasts Blizzara, and Beatrix eats 4000+ damage in two turns. She barely has time to throw two attacks that don't do shit before she goes "FUCK YOU" and pulls out Stock Break, forcing a loss.
Now, I'm not saying that this makes the narrative loss invalid. It's very clear from the start that Beatrix doesn't take us seriously and is barely giving it any effort. When she does put in the effort, we instantly eat shit; all that changes is the way in which we make her choose to put in that effort. It's, hm…
The difference is that in my first fight, it came across as her toying with us while we were frantically scrambling for bare survival, until she finally got bored of playing with children and pulled out a special move to finish it.
In the second fight, where she goes two turns before blasting us while we're at full health, it makes it look like Beatrix is, how did someone else put it…
Deep inside, we're kindred spirits, Bea and I.
Thank you for reading.
Next Time: Disc 2!
Look at that statue in the back. That's definitely a lizard with a headdress. It's also… Hm.
This room is full of loot, and the invaders didn't take any.
…
We haven't really touched upon this, but the attack is being done with only black mages, isn't it? There is zero mention of any Alexandria soldiers. It's Zorn, Thorn, the General, and then an army of mindless killer dolls.
You'd think an army of mindless black mages would work better supported by infantry. There's only one reason I can imagine why you would attack with black mages alone: Plausible deniability. This is a covert op. No one in Alexandria knows that Queen Brahne led a devastating attack on Burmecia, and when the news trickle to them, she'll deny everything. That, and the concern that Alexandrian soldiers might object to a totally unprovoked invasion of a friendly nation.
And black mages don't care for loot. So the riches of Burmecia just sit there in the empty, rain-splattered homes of its dead people.
We deliver a letter to the local moogle (it informs us that Stiltzkin travels with a map of the entire world and rare items, so we definitely want to catch up with him eventually), and he thanks us by giving us a Kupo Nut, then another letter to carry.
He also has a shop! Called the Mogshop, it is extremely welcome and allows us to improve our gear and stock on supplies ahead of what's no doubt going to be a boss battle.
There's another abandoned building we can explore. It looks to be an armory, and as we enter, Freya starts looking for anything we might actually use.
As it turns out, at the back end of the room is another massive statue holding a spear.
She picks up the spear, and tests it with a thrust, commenting that it is light and easy to use. And no wonder: it's a mythril spear, which is immediately added to our inventory, where I immediately remember to equip it and do not forget until after the end of this update, that didn't happen.
Zidane feels the hype of the moment. Freya has entered the dragon knights armories, and she has found a mythril spear, they are stronger now, this calls for a bit of spirit-rousing commentary. Zidane, what you got?
Legendary.
UNDEFEATED Foot-in-Mouth Style Master. No one does it like Zidane.
I just, I need you to see the Slump of Total Misery that Vivi does when he hears this:
They call him the most expressive faceless puppet boy ever designed by man.
Zidane: "Come on. You know I don't mean you."
Vivi: "I know…" [He turns to Zidane, struggling to put words together. "But…" [He grabs the sides of his hat and pushes it down lower on his head. "Never mind…"
Zidane: "Vivi…"
[Dialogue ends.]
Incredible. Zidane so totally beefed it that he doesn't even manage a comeback or a reassurance. He really just stabbed Vivi in the heart and totally failed the recovery. God, this was painful to watch.
But now it's time.
We are headed to the palace.
This statue was damaged so thoroughly that it even dropped its giant… Katana? That hilt looks like a katana.
Zidane: "Geez, this is terrible… Freya, I'm sorry, but from the looks of this, I don't think the king made it."
[Freya falls to her knees, and says nothing.]
Here, we have a few dialogue options, though they don't amount to much, and only one leads to the next beat.
Zidane: [I wonder if Dagger's alright…]
Zidane: "I don't think Dagger came here… I wonder where she went…"
Yeah Zidane, no shit. We as an audience of course already know Dagger didn't go to Burmecia, but this is the part that makes it really obvious in-character to Zidane. It's very unlikely that Dagger, with Steiner accompanying her, would have just pushed through all this death and devastation. If she hadn't stopped in horror, she would have stopped to try to help the injured, and if she hadn't, Steiner would have refused to let her go any further with just the two of them.
Zidane: [Talk to her]
Zidane: "I don't know what to tell you… We can only hope that the king and the others escaped."
Freya: "...."
Zidane: [Leave her alone]
Zidane: "Vivi, let's go see what's over there."
[They start leaving; suddenly, Freya stands up.]
Freya: "!!!"
[She jumps to the top of the statue.]
Freya: There's someone inside the palace! What are you waiting for? Get up here."
[She leaps off the top of the statue.]
Zidane: "You make it sound so easy…"
[Zidane starts hopping up onto the statue, then turns to the others.]
Zidane: "Come on."
Vivi: "Um… Okay."
Zidane: "Oh, man. I'm gonna go ahead. Try to find a way up there. I'll meet you up top."
Quina: "I meet you after I eat food inside palace!"
One thing I am really liking about FF9 is the way it actually portrays the characters using their abilities outside of combat, which shouldn't be such a surprise but really is after VII and VIII. Here, Freya, a dragon knight, easily jumps to the top of the statue in a single leap, because Jump is her class ability. Zidane, who is an agile thief with monkey traits, grumbles and has to actually climb the statue, but still does so with swiftness and agility. Vivi and Quina, however, lack such athleticism, and so they're stuck on the ground having to find the long way round. It's a neat way to show how the various characters' mobility relates to one another.
Soon, Zidane and Freya are making their way up a high gallery, behind a row of statues in robes holding spears (these do look to be rats, not reptilian beings). But more interesting than the statues is what they observe below.
Queen Brahne is here.
So, uh. Yeah, there's nobody home for you to meet, Dagger. Sorry about that.
Freya: "I knew she was behind all this."
Zidane: "What do you mean, you knew?"
Freya: "I decided to return to Burmecia because I heard rumors that Brahne had set her sights on our kingdom."
Zidane: "Then that girl standing next to her must be Beatrix, Alexandria's general."
Freya: "That's Beatrix? The cold-blooded knight who knows no mercy. Beatrix…"
It is obvious from the way she talks about her that Freya is familiar with Beatrix by reputation - not just that, but that she means something to her.
And we're about to find out what.
V. The Sword Saint
And there he is. Sir Fratley, the man Freya has been looking for. A dragon knight clad in a golden outfit, wearing a mask of a helm.
Fratley: "I hear there are many fierce warriors out in the world - some more powerful than even I… Beatrix of Alexandria, in particular. They say her swordsmanship is the best in the land."
Freya: "Sir Fratley, do you still insist on going on your journey?"
Fratley: "Yes… please understand, Freya. Right now, Burmecia is at peace, while other nations are slowly but surely gaining power. I don't know if my spear alone is enough to protect Burmecia… which is precisely why I must go out into the world."
Freya: "Sir Fratley… I don't think I can live on my own - not without you."
Fratley: "Freya, you're going to be fine. Trust your strength… and have faith in your destiny. Once I complete my journey around the world, I will return to Burmecia."
Freya: "Then promise me, one more time, that you will return."
Fratley: "I promise."
[He turns around; Freya falls to her knees in sorrow.]
Freya: Fratley… You never came back… You've left me with nothing except rumors of your death. I couldn't believe it! I still won't believe it! Never. Not until I witness proof of your death with my own eyes. And I will travel across the world forever if I must…
Oh, Freya.
Zidane was the only one who used the word "boyfriend" to describe Fratley, though Freya didn't object. I wonder if that wasn't aspirational, though. She was clearly in love with Fratley, but between the fact that she would have been 16 at the time and that she still called him "Sir Fratley" in private, were they actually a couple, or was she just pining for him from afar?
The fact that the man she's been looking for all these years has been presumed dead the whole time, yet she won't give up her search, does a lot to show us what her character is about - that combination of resolve and denial, of refusing to even admit the possibility, of committing her entire life to proving it wrong, no matter how unlikely. It really does fit for a character who behaves much more seriously and sternly that her age would suggest, yet not in the specific ways that Steiner himself acts, because it's not at all coming from the same place. A commitment to a personal search, rather than duty to an outside cause.
She's left Burmecia behind for that goal, and now she only comes back too late.
Or is it?
Someone approaches below.
Note how the entire rooftop of the palace appears to have been torn away, turning what was probably a throne room into an open-sky arena. This suggests Brahne employed an aerial attack.
Mystery Man: "I find this rain quite pleasant… It feels as though the raindrops are blessing our victory…"
Brahne: "This is a great victory for us. Kuja, your black mages made this conquest so simple. My only concern now is finding the king of Burmecia. We must take care of him once and for all, and prevent these rats from ever rising up again." [She turns to Beatrix.] "Beatrix, what's taking so long?"
Beatrix: "I don't know, Your Majesty. I've ordered Zorn and Thorn to search the perimeter, but there's been no word so far. I will join them and lead the search right away."
[She starts to leave.]
Kuja: "You're wasting your time."
Beatrix: [She pauses and turns around.] "What?"
Kuja: "Rats often look for new homes when they sense an earthquake. They probably moved to the sandy tree house by now… So, you see, it's too late. The king has already turned tail and fled."
Brahne: "Sandy tree house… Surely, you don't mean Cleyra!? It will be quite difficult if they escaped to Cleyra."
Beatrix: "Cleyra… Unless we can get through that sandstorm, it will be impossible to attack them."
Brahne: "Sneaky, little rats! Kuja, what do you think? Surely, with your powers, there must be something you can do."
[Kuja bows gracefully.]
Kuja: "Of course, Your Majesty. I will present you a marvelous display of my power. I am certain you will be most pleased." [He turns to Beatrix, folding his arms.] "I was wondering if you would gather your troops near Cleyra. I'm certain those filthy rats will retaliate in full force, and my black mages may not be enough."
God. Look at him. Listen to him. We won't get a proper look at his outfit until later, but look at that cunty little pose. 'Quite pleasant'? 'Sandy tree house'? 'Marvelous display'? 'I was wondering if'? There's "queer coding" and then there's whatever the fuck this is.
So now we have a name and a face for our mysterious 'benefactor,' the mystery man whose arrival seems to coincide with Queen Brahne's behavior going awry. He's the one who provided the technology to create the black mages, confirming that this wasn't something Alexandria came up with on his own. And he has power - power enough to break through that giant sand cyclone we saw on the map earlier, because that's clearly what Cleyra is.
Queen Brahne is a patsy. This man is the true threat.
We saw Beatrix before only briefly, in the intro, when Steiner rambled about her always one-upping him. But it's clear they're operating on different levels. She led this covert attack using a bunch of killer mage dolls, and does not seem to have the slightest bit of hesitation at the massacre she just committed. It's also… Hm. Put a pin in that.
Above, Zidane and Freya comment on what they're seeing - neither of them recognize Kuja, and they give us a little more info on Cleyra: Called the "City of Illusion," it has remained in isolation for the past hundred years, but it was originally founded by expatriates from Burmecia who cut ties over a "trivial conflict," and raised a large sandstorm to shield themselves. This past connection explains why the king believes he might find safety there.
Suddenly, a new character enters.
A foolhardy Burmecian soldier, looking to throw his life away in a desperate attempt against Queen Brahne's life. But Beatrix interposes herself before the queen can come to harm, and Zidane and Freya, realizing the soldier is about to be killed, jumped down to help him.
It's a terrible, terrible idea.
The Burmecian Soldier boldly proclaims his intent. It's hopeless, but perhaps, in his reckless attempt, he might strike down the queen even as he is killed.
It's this obviously suicidal resolve that makes the next moment so striking. Beatrix, her hand on her sword in a posture ready to draw, says:
Beatrix: "You wish to fight me, Beatrix of Alexandria?"
And the moment she says this, all fight goes out of the man. He stammers her name, 'B-Beatrix?' and stands up straight, abandoning his own fighting stance, utterly dumbstruck.
This is a name that makes even the hopes of the hopeless die. He was ready to die, but now he knows he will never even reach Queen Brahne with his dying stroke.
Beatrix: "I commend your courage, but I will show you no mercy."
God, that's it, we're getting the "honorable but merciless master of the sword" archetype, I am always a sucker for those. And she's a woman this time! That's cool!
Fortunately(?), the party emerge just at this moment.
Zidane: "Hold it!"
Freya: "You'll have to deal with us, first!" [The Burmecian soldier runs past and behind our party.] "We'll take care of this. Go find the king. Protect him with your life."
Burmecian Soldier: "...Thank you, Freya."
[He leaves. Beatrix looks at the party, bemused.]
Beatrix: "Ha ha ha. I've never been more humiliated in my life."
[Everyone falls into combat stances.]
Beatrix: "I once killed a hundred knights single-handedly… To me, you two are nothing more than insects."
Oh no she's so cool - wait did I forget to heal up? Oh. Oh no.
Okay so this is off to an unfortunate start. I just… Forgot to use a tent at the last moogle.
And I forgot to equip Freya with the Mythril Spear.
The HP situation is okay, but I need to immediately start topping up Vivi and Freya's MP so that they can use Black Magic and Lancer, and Zidane as usual takes a few turns to Detect and then Steal, which leaves Quina, who is… Powerful but not reliable. And they start with just not enough HP for Mighty Guard, which would be a real help here. That means Beatrix gets to open up a can of shitwrecking on my party mostly uncontested in the opening.
So what can she do? Well, first, she has basic physical attacks, which are relatively puny. But then…
Thunder Slash, an attack which the game stubbornly refuses to give me any good camera angles of, has Beatrix attack with a lightning sword move dealing a respectable 195 damage.
…
So let's pull out that pin from earlier.
Beatrix is Celes.
She's a general of the evil nation, she has a widespread reputation as not just a deadly swordswoman but a ruthless and cold-blooded general, she fights by combining swordplay and magic. In much the same way as Zorn and Thorn are referencing Kefka without being literally just him, Beatrix references Celes, but we're meeting a Celes before her defection, a Celes who is still the terrible sword of her kingdom. And that means, unfortunately for us, that she hasn't been reset to "starting character level" by the needs of the narrative.
This first Thunder Slash actually has an interesting secondary effect, though…
It triggers Quina's first Trance.
…
Wish that did anything, though.
Quina's Trance is possibly the most useless of all characters so far. Its effects is simple: Normally, Eat only works on enemies below 25%. In Trance, it works on any enemy below 50% HP. Given that Eats instantly takes out any enemy it works on, that could be useful for random encounters… And only that. Bosses can't be Eaten. And as far as I can tell, Quina's Trance does not increase their magic damage or anything.They don't unlock any blue magic. It is effectively worthless in a boss fight.
At least we can analyze what they look like in this form. Their color palette is the same as Vivi's, white and purple; interestingly, their face becomes nearly as much of a dark hole as a Black Mage's. Could this be indicating to some common link between the two? Additionally, there's heraldry on Quina's outfit that resembles Vivi's own, and their chef's hat looks fancier. A fulfilled Quina, who is now a great gourmand of the realm, a famed chef? I think the similarity in color schemes is the more interesting angle here, it's an odd connection.
(Freya entered Trance on the way to Burmecia but it was at the end of a random encounter and I didn't get any good footage out of it so we'll talk about it when it becomes relevant again.)
So, Quina's Trance is useless. Still, they have damaging moves like, hm, Aqua Breath?
Aqua Breath whiffs.
Freya is next with a Lancer that hits for 275 damage, which is decent, except-
Beatrix retaliates with Shock, a sharp blow and a wave of light dealing nearly as much damage as Freya's max HP. Given that she went in injured, she instantly goes down. Fuck.
I have Quina throw a Phoenix Down at Freya to get her back up, and Quina's Trance runs out - not that it did us much good anyway.
But then, small mercies. Beatrix decides that she takes my raising the character she just downed personally, and decides to pick on Freya again…
The Coral Ring absorbs lightning damage.
It's all good now. Vivi is back to max MP and can start throwing Blizzara soon. Zidane just grabbed the Phoenix Down off Beatrix, freeing the way for her much more attractive two other Steals: Chain Plate and Mythril Sword. We don't even need any save-scumming for the Chain Plate, it drops immediately, and then we blast Beatrix for as much damage as possible.
And she kinda took this personally.
Beatrix's second Shock instantly takes out Quina with 756 damage. I attempt to give us some room to work by using Zidane's Soul Blade to blind her - and Beatrix reveals that she is immune to Darkness, and then-
God, she's so fucking cool.
OKAY, NEVER MIND, THIS IS FINE. Vivi is down, Quina is barely up, there's still a drop but no matter how many times I repeat the steal varying the timing it doesn't fucking drop (judging from past conversations, it's got a base 1/256 drop chance), so I give up and decide to have Zidane move onto the attack, and Beatrix retaliates by taking out Quina again. I raise Vivi and-
Oh god he's dead again.
I still have two party members, Freya is up in the air where she's safe from attacks until she lands, this is fine -
OH NOW YOU GIVE ME A CLOSE-UP SHOT
Stock Break is definitely some kind of Limit Break. Beatrix shouts "You're no match for me!" and then hits the party with a sword wave that hits everyone and brings Zidane and Freya (my only two surviving characters) down to 1 HP.
This causes Zidane to enter Trance, which, as it turns out, will not matter.
I'm fairly certain that it's pure coincidence that the damage from Beatrix's "total HP-1 damage" finishing move brought Zidane into Trance, but in a way it's almost perfect; she unveils her super move, wipes the floor with the party, Zidane goes into his super mode… And it's still not enough, he still can barely keep standing at all.
More on that in a moment.
Oh come off it lady, we pushed you far enough to use a Limit Break, don't sass us.
Beatrix: "How ridiculously weak… Isn't there anyone who is worthy of facing me?"
Brahne: "Come, Beatrix. We must prepare to attack Cleyra."
Beatrix: "Yes, Your Majesty."
[They leave. Kuja makes his way more slowly, pausing to observe the party; only Zidane is still on his knees, the others down.]
Kuja: "Now, what do we have here…? Another filthy rat, and… Hmm… This boy could become a problem."
Kuja saw Zidane, and instantly decided that out of all four, he is the one who could be a problem for his plan, definitely is our first major alarm bell ringing that there is more to Zidane than meets the eye. What that "more" could be, who knows; but he's definitely drawn the attention of the white-haired pretty boy. But now.
It's cutscene time.
VI. If I Grit My Teeth And Lie I Can Pretend Sephiroth Was Hotter
Notice how Quina isn't in this cutscene; they're an optional character so they gave them the ol' Yuffie/Vincent treatment and just kinda dropped them out of the big dramatic ending FMV.
Vivi is unconscious. Zidane is down, half-seated but visibly to tired and injured to actually stand up. But Freya! Freya is face down, visibly struggling to manage to lift her head from the ground so she can at least look at the faces of the ones who have destroyed her home.
Kuja's shadow stretches on the ancient patterned floors of Burmecia's throne room. His feet appear in the frame first. Then Freya manages to lift up her head, and look at him.
And there he is.
The sluttiest villain in Final Fantasy history.
No, seriously, look at this fucking outfit - that's not even a crop top! That top goes as far as his tits! The """skirt"" that's literally a shred of fabric tied to a fucking, codpiece? The slits in his dress so he can have visible hips? His hair is wet so he flips a lock out of his face-
This guy would have "I AM THE MAIN ANTAGONIST OF THIS GAME" tattoo'd over his face even if he wasn't staring at you in the Dissidia character selection menu as FF9's villain representative. That's not "spoilers" that's "pattern recognition."
Anyway the important takeaway here is that as a straight man, this has no effect on me. Whatsoever. At all.
Ahem. Where was I?
And there we have Freya's screen capture from her character quote, struggling, and failing, to stand up and challenge Kuja as he leaves.
Oh yeah then Kuja takes off RIDING A FUCKING DRAGON-
And that's where we get the prompt to save our game.
Because yes, my friends.
This is where Disc 1 ends.
So, that was Disc 1.
…
Wait a minute, that was Disc 1? What?
Let me just check - okay, Disc 1 of FF7 took 23 updates. Now granted that's because of how VII worked; the game was incredibly front-loaded and Disc 3 was pretty much vestigial. But it still took us 12 updates to get to the end of Disc 1 of FF8!
This is Update 8.
The construction is familiar - we have a big dramatic dungeon representing a massive swing in the game's tone (Burmecia is incredibly bleak compared to most of the game up to that point), an overwhelming boss fight against a major antagonist who 'wins' even if we win the mechanical boss fight (Sephiroth flies away after killing Aerith, Ultimedea takes Squall out with her Limit Break, Beatrix wipes the floor with everyone while Kuja is watching), it follows the beats.
But it's so short. And Kuja has just been introduced, we know next to nothing about him, unlike Sephiroth or Edea.
To my surprise, we are still relatively on track with VIII level-wise; we fought Edea at around lv 15, vs lv 13 for this game. Still shorter, but not all that much. But in terms of narrative length this feels wildly shorter. Actually let me quickly check-
Yeah. Disc 1 of FF8 took 16 hours. Disc 1 of FF9 took 11:30. It genuinely is shorter by about a whole third.
I wasn't expecting that.
But hey! Length isn't everything. And as a climactic chapter for this disc, Burmecia was kind of fantastic. No wonder Freya's theme is "Sorrow"; she went into this as one woman searching the world for her teenage crush whom everyone thinks is dead, refusing to acknowledge that possibility until she could see his body with her own eyes, and now she's lost her entire people.
The massacre of Burmecia is of such relentless brutality that I don't think it would be excessive to call it a genocide. Beatrix, Zorn, Thorn, and their army of black mages, killing men and women alike, civilians and combatants altogether, and their goal was not to take hold of the city and obtain surrender; they were clearly out to slay the royal family and ensure Burmecia would never rise as a power again. They were neither trying to hold the city nor claim its riches (though they might, opportunistically; it just wasn't the driving goal).
And all of it is set in the "Realm of Eternal Rain," this overcast kingdom where rain follows us the entire time, with this grand but haunting, sorrowful music the entire time. The city itself is beautiful, a combination of the delicate flowery motifs of Art Nouveau and omnipresent, massive statuary commemorating figures unknown to us because we walk among the corpses of their citizens.
It does feel a little bit like we left Dagger behind a while ago - she got one brief, mostly comedic scene at the cable car to remind us she exists, but she's by now lv 7 when our party is lv 13, which gives you an idea of how much gameplay we've had without her (or Steiner) at this point. But hey, it's given us a chance to play a lot with Quina! And frankly they're a character I might have disregarded if they'd joined and immediately given us the option to leave them out in favor of someone else, just because they take time to really make useful, but having them as a quasi-mandatory party member and taking a little time to find them good meals has really made them into a valuable member of the team.
Even if their Trance is terrible.
And now we have our Mandatory Bishie Antagonist. I am curious where the game is taking this - I mean, beyond the obvious, "attacking the city in the sandstorm." But yeah, there's not much else for me to say for now.
Aside from one thing.
I want to talk about the Beatrix fight.
We've talked before about forced losses in RPGs and how tricky they are to handle. Here, I think the loss against Beatrix worked well, and that's for one main reason:
Because I'm a dumbass.
I fucked around and found out. I forgot to equip my shiny new spear, forgot to use a Tent, and walked into this fight like I was Vegeta showing up to Final Form Frieza with a smug smirk and instantly got my shit rocked. The fight was genuinely a struggle because Beatrix's blitz moves kept taking out my characters and I kept wasting turns raising them until we hit the timer on her enrage and she said "I'm bored now" and mowed down everyone in a single strike.
What happens if we don't do that?
We walk into the fight with full HP and MP, Freya uses her new Mythril Spear's ability, Reis's Wind (Final Fantasy Tactics reference?) to cast Regen on everyone, Quina casts Mighty Guard granting everyone Protect and Shield, at which point Beatrix's attacks are completely unable to take out my characters; she breaks her sword on Vivi, triggering Trance, and he dualcasts Blizzara, and Beatrix eats 4000+ damage in two turns. She barely has time to throw two attacks that don't do shit before she goes "FUCK YOU" and pulls out Stock Break, forcing a loss.
Now, I'm not saying that this makes the narrative loss invalid. It's very clear from the start that Beatrix doesn't take us seriously and is barely giving it any effort. When she does put in the effort, we instantly eat shit; all that changes is the way in which we make her choose to put in that effort. It's, hm…
The difference is that in my first fight, it came across as her toying with us while we were frantically scrambling for bare survival, until she finally got bored of playing with children and pulled out a special move to finish it.
In the second fight, where she goes two turns before blasting us while we're at full health, it makes it look like Beatrix is, how did someone else put it…
Deep inside, we're kindred spirits, Bea and I.
Thank you for reading.
Next Time: Disc 2!
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- Location
- the Republic
- Pronouns
- He/They
It's nice that you've decided to keep us all updated on the fun side material that's available between sections of Chocobo Hot and Cold, but really, you shouldn't neglect the main game like that. There are still chocographs to collect!
The tonal dissonance between characters.
Steiner and Garnet: Heehee Pickles
meanwhile
Freya: Oh my lizard god, everyone is fucking dead
Vivi: Trying and failing to deal with a moral and existential crisis
Zidane: Unable to roll high enough on a speech check to compensate for the general events
Quina: Heehee Pickles
Steiner and Garnet: Heehee Pickles
meanwhile
Freya: Oh my lizard god, everyone is fucking dead
Vivi: Trying and failing to deal with a moral and existential crisis
Zidane: Unable to roll high enough on a speech check to compensate for the general events
Quina: Heehee Pickles
GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
And there he is. Sir Fratley, the man Freya has been looking for. A dragon knight clad in a golden outfit, wearing a mask of a helm.
That is neither a golden outfit or a mask-helmet. It's a casual travelling outfit and a cool hat.
You're quite unlucky. IIRC you could dig up 9 chocographs, 6 of which you could reach at that point in the game.
Well that, or you're just bad at the minigame.
I don't know if it happens here, but later on picking the wrong choice will lead to a bad result.
Vocalist
Verdant Maiden in Violet
- Location
- By a Cedar Tree
I was waiting with bated breath for you to get to Kuja, so that I could scream about this horrible, wonderful, slutty little man. The ideal form of the silver-haired JRPG villain. I made some kind of wordless, high-pitched noise when I saw him in the pre-rendered cutscene for the first time. The art style may be less realistic in this game, but the character designs have never been better. There's room for out-there creativity, while still showing a lot of details like did you notice how Kuja has a few straps on his back to hold up his loose skirt, so it can artfully sag to reveal his hips without falling down entirely?
(Normally I'm not a fan of overly-slutty character design, but I think this works for me because of the way Kuja is presented. It feels like Kuja is dressed that way because Kuja, the character, wants to be hot, and not because some developer is dangling eye candy in front of our faces like we're fucking dogs hungry for treats.)
I'm a lesbian, but I won't lie, this man was created to make me question that. He rides a white dragon, c'mon. If it turns out he has daddy issues too, I'll perish.
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Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
In terms of disk length, it bears repeating here that PSX disc length is determined largely by density of pre-rendered cutscenes, rather than by actual hours of gameplay content. So its only reasonable that as Square's cinematic ambitions climbed (towards the cliff named Spirits Within) and their experience and skill with doing cinematics increased, the number, length, and level of detail of those pre-rendered cutscenes would increase accordingly.
Had there been a fourth PSX numbered FF game, I don't doubt it would have maybe five hours of gameplay on its first disc at most.
(separately, I remain forever in awe of Kuja's ability to do the degree of tucking necessary for what I can only describe as "looks more like a bikini bottom than a codpiece" and still be able to, like, ride a dragon around on dragonback and walk and presumably fight and stuff)
Had there been a fourth PSX numbered FF game, I don't doubt it would have maybe five hours of gameplay on its first disc at most.
(separately, I remain forever in awe of Kuja's ability to do the degree of tucking necessary for what I can only describe as "looks more like a bikini bottom than a codpiece" and still be able to, like, ride a dragon around on dragonback and walk and presumably fight and stuff)
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Based Steiner, he knows what should be done.
Eh, little of column A, little of column B? That's my take anyways, the Black Waltzes made it pretty clear they would blow up everyone and anyone in the area to capture Garnet so she probably doesn't want to deal with that... but also she's clearly been having fun being Just Dagger.
Zero out of Ten game
End it here Omi, it's no longer worth playing
Freya: "Zidane, as we speak my people are being slaughtered, my entire kingdom, my family, my childhood friends are being mowed down in the streets"
Zidane: "Yes Freya, but have you considered: Chocobo."
Wonder how good Magic Hammer is as a player ability in FFIX. From what I remember of previous games, wiping out an enemy's MP pool was a surprisingly viable strat in a lot of cases.
Probably some one-off boss who you kick the ass of, or at most who runs off going "YOU'LL RUE THE DAY" after you smack them around. Nothing special, I'm sure.
It's nice to have a less downer/brooding character after Cloud and Squall, not gonna lie. Both were great characters, don't get me wrong, but Zidane just has so much pep in his step, and it's still held in check with his incredible ability to just shove his entire boot down his own throat and start chewing at times.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prw2B_03IzY
Yeah, once again as it turns out when all your characters have predefined classes and roles and whatnot, it means you can actually do some pretty cool stuff with them utilizing those roles in the story? One of the many reasons I quite like FFIX, and probably prefer characters with defined classes over free job/materia/etc systems when it comes to purely story beats (gameplay-wise though... I'm a sucker for massive class grinding to create ridiculous OP combos).
So yeah, so much for that "Covert Ops" theory seeing as Literally The Queen Herself is here. Granted I forgot Brahne shows up, I could have sworn it was just Beatrix for whatever reason... probably because her first fight is so iconic of an end to Disk 1.
GOLLY GEE
I DO SO WONDER IF WE MIGHT HAVE FOUND OUR MAIN VILLAIN OF THE GAME
TRULY IT IS A MYSTERY
Girl may have just committed genocide, but really what girlboss hasn't done that? We let Beatrix have a little genocide, as a treat.
Yeah, Quina's Trance is distinctly the worst one in the game, both because it's only really useful against random encounters (and still doesn't give you 100% HP Eat or anything, just 50%), and also because it's not that difficult to get enemies down to the 25% threshold with the resources the game gives you.
I had totally not known this until the thread, but apparently FFIX Aqua Breath is not in fact a water damage decent AoE like it has been in previous games? It's some kind of percentage damage attack like Gravity, with a success rate involving your Level and the target's Level.
Whoa, hey now Omi, we're only on Game 9 of 16! You never know, there might be someone who can compare. Maybe.
...Who am I kidding you've played Dissidia, at the very least you've seen the main villains lineup and can compare Slut Tiers.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prw2B_03IzY
I genuinely forgot that Disk 1 ends this early as well! Of course, it's not how long a game is so much as what you do with that time that matters, you could have a two hundred hour grind that bores you to tears, or stick with the so far pretty tight experience we've gotten.
E.I.G.
Robo-Bird
- Pronouns
- It/They
... so, I have to be honest here.
The Steiner and Dagger comedy bit... was kind of just a thing that happened. I don't know if it is just the nature of this thread that is making it less amusing than it is in practice, but...
Well, I don't actually find Steiner funny, and Dagger is a character that I find mostly awkward to hear about. These two are the pair that most needs the rest of the cast to make them more likable so far... and they are all alone without the rest of the cast doing a comedy bit while the others are getting a front row seat to the destruction of a people.
I'm not saying I hate them, but I don't really think they are doing what they are meant to for me. Again, maybe this is less of an issue when playing, but I am uneasy with how much I dislike their bits due to the drama regarding them earlier in the thread.
The Steiner and Dagger comedy bit... was kind of just a thing that happened. I don't know if it is just the nature of this thread that is making it less amusing than it is in practice, but...
Well, I don't actually find Steiner funny, and Dagger is a character that I find mostly awkward to hear about. These two are the pair that most needs the rest of the cast to make them more likable so far... and they are all alone without the rest of the cast doing a comedy bit while the others are getting a front row seat to the destruction of a people.
I'm not saying I hate them, but I don't really think they are doing what they are meant to for me. Again, maybe this is less of an issue when playing, but I am uneasy with how much I dislike their bits due to the drama regarding them earlier in the thread.
Mizu
Software Developer
- Location
- Victoria, Australia
I got a chuckle out of Dagger surviving the gate inspection undiscovered solely because she was buried under thirty stinky pickle jars and the guards were too grossed out to dig deeper into the bag. Shame we didn't get a new costume for her when she changed outfits afterwards, but I guess that's a gameplay limitation of PlayStation One titles re: storage space on disk.
- Location
- Italy
So, it is too late to say that FF9 is my favorite character and that I mained Kuja in Dissidia? Well, the NT one, cause it's the only one I have.
Yes, he's my favorite character.
Yes, he's my favorite character.
Yeeeeeahhh... About that. I'm not going to say yes, but I'm also not going to say no, because the whole thing is. Complicated. To use an euphemism.
It's even funnier than that, IIRC Dagger actually wiggles around in protest hard enoug that the sack beans Steiner in the back of the head.
Frankly, you got off easy.
I wanted to point this out earlier when we were all discussing rat-people, but It was better to wait until now for obvious reasons. I really like Burmecia, and I really, really like that they aren't just your generic rat people. Even in settings were they're not evil, ratfolk are generally some sort of lower class scavenger or comic relief. And while I enjoy a good "anthropomorphic animal as visual shorthand for a person's inner characteristics" motif as the next guy, I agree that it's very nice to have them feel like an actual, non stereotypical culture, and a really cool one to boot.
Sorry, what I meant to say was RATWIFE RATWIFE RATWIFE RATWIFE-
It's funny that you bring up Frieza, because I just realized that's that's exactly who Kuja reminds me of. I don't know if it was intentional or not but I feel there's definitely some surface similarities in being androgynous
Turnabout is fair play; we're just applying Ultamecia's design sensibilities to Alexandria's most evil twink.
Beatrix is Celes, doing Gilgamesh's job, and she happens to be horrifically overqualified for it. I think a worse game would have written the party to be far less overmatched, or Beatrix to be far more sympathetic.
Anyways, we've finally gotten to the part where FF9 stops coyly hinting that it might just get a little dark, and finally sucker punches you in the face that these wacky cartoon characters are Going To Suffer.
Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
YES!! THERE I AM! THERE I AM! AHHHHH, TO LOOK UPON MINE OWN BEAUTY!! GAZE UPON ME, INSIPID MORTALS, AND CONSIDER YOURSELVES BLESSED THAT YOUR MOMENTARY LIVES DID HAPPEN TO INTERSECT WITH MY OWN GLORIOUS EXISTENCE!! OHOHOHOHOHOHO...!~~
And there he is.
...I was quite a dish in my younger days, wasn't I. Ahuhuhuhuhuu~
- Location
- Between dreams and reality
Today's scene is an excerpt from the Bard's very own Henry VI Part 1 Specifically Act 1, Scene Two lines 99-104. Zidane is playing Chales VII who was at the time the Dauphin (heir apparent) of France. And Beatrix is playing none other than Joan of f!cking Arc a.k.a. Pucelle (or The Maiden).
Bit of tangent but it says something about Joan of Arc, that even Shakespeare, a 16th century English male who will go on to deeply slander Joan later on in the play can't help but introduce her as a total badass.
Also, hey @Kuja. Is that your namesake up there?
edit: Ninjaed?
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Weird. Back when I played this.... back in 2000? Beatrix came across to me coded as Leo, instead. She's the super General with the Shock attack.
*Puts on fake accent. Points at the beautiful prerendered backgrounds. Points at the beautiful prerendered cutscenes.* You think that all comes free? It takes disk space to store that stuff! Lotsa space! And don't even ask me about music and voices!
But, no, seriously, this is the era where number of disks probably had more to do with how many and how fancy the cutscenes and all were rather than content.
(And I'm of the opinion that the Japanese developers tend to be horrible about data compression.)
FunkyEntropy
Occasionally insightful, possibly grumpy
- Location
- Los Angeles
[for posterity, in case source breaks: what can I say except "you're welcome" gif]
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Zap Rowsdower
Ex-cultist vagrant
- Location
- Bright lights, big city
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Unless the developer in question is Satoru Iwata.
The funny part is that Omi didn't even meet the dragons. The things he encountered were the relatively weaker ones, the other encounter up there is a dragon that normally shows up only near the end of disc 3. The big reason most folks go for the early Coral Ring is to get immunity to said dragons' thundaga to make level grinding on said dragons at least theoretically possible.
edit: the garudas he ran into? Level 35, 3,521 HP. The dragons in the same little plateau area? Level 60, 13,206 HP.
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Kuja
I'M A SQUIIIID
- Location
- AZ
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's such a fascinating blink-and-you'll-miss-it lore drop. It ties into something I want to talk about later, but first can I just point out how ungodly tragic this is? Freya's first boss fight with the full party (not counting the zaghnol) and she has a hand in slaying ... some manner of honored beast of Burmecia, a land to which she hasn't returned in years. My god the absolute cruelty of this as a narrative. A small wonder Freya is on the absolute verge of an emotional breakdown even just getting to Burmecia.
If you watch this bit very closely, you'll notice that the "bag of pickles" actually rears up and kicks Steiner in the back of the head as he's about to dismiss Mary's concerns, Dagger evidently having overheard him about to be a dick.
Welcome to the great grand tradition of FF9: checking out the plateau and getting mulched. In fairness, the moogles did warn you.In the hope this helps, here's a map taken from one of your screenshots showing the path the story has taken thus far:
Green for Zidane, starting in Alexandria and going down to Lindblum by way of Dali, then north to Burmecia, while orange is how far Dagger and Steiner have gone.
You are correct in your assessment that you're on the other side of that gate near Alexandria where the unseen woman sold you some potions - there is popular speculation in the FF9 fandom that that person is, in fact, Beatrix, which would be an astounding irony, but there is no real evidence to support it.
And then ... god what do I even say. The entire Burmecia sequence hits so fucking hard. It's like you've been coasting on some fun fantasy swords and sorcery and then the story unleashes the most brutal right hook that abruptly breaks your nose. Beatrix is so god damn cool when you walk into her boss battle for the first time not knowing what's about to happen and you just get brutalized.
Ahahahaha. Yes. And then there's this. The appearance of the infamous white haired bishie
...
...actually let's not beat around the bush. Kuja as a character was targeted with every homophobic and transphobic slur the internet could imagine at the time. His look was used as a punchline over and over again, because "Gay" was the funniest joke imaginable for vast swaths of the online landscape, with similar mockery directed at the fangirls and fujoshis that wrote ew weird gay cringe fanfic about him, and about Sephiroth, and other such JRPG characters.
I love him. I've held onto this name for over 20 years because FF9 is my favorite one and because this moment burned itself into my neural pathways. You may recall Adel was one of the characters I mentioned as making me question my hitherto-standard-issue heterosexuality, and if Adel was a whole new world, Kuja is the bright glowing star around which all else orbits. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Kuja is the tentpole around which I built the way I approach the depictions of sexuality in media and fandom - I've certainly refined it since that time, but it would be as much a lie to say it's changed.
I will have more to say about Kuja's appearance and the man himself later, naturally.
There's something else I've been thinking of for the past few updates. Playing FFT and FF9 back to back really throws it into stark relief.
This game tells you fucking nothing.
FFT gave you reams upon reams of setting lore and character details, up to and including people you would never meet. And I do love that about it - I love to sink my teeth into a well-crafted exposition dump. And FFT used its exposition wisely, crafting the scene of a war torn not-England composed of feuding factions and competing agendas.
And then there's FF9. "The giant lizard does marriages, yeah, shut up about it, stuff is happening." The game is committed to never having the characters expound on things they would already know. As an example, Cid and Garnet talk about Queen Brahne turning warlike...because they already know what she used to be like, they don't need to rehash Garnet's childhood. People know Vivi is a black mage, but...how do they know what black mages are? Well, probably there were some in the wars mentioned...look, you know what black mages are, can we get on with the escape from Dali? Fuck, look at the Tantalus crew: aside from Baku being a bat-man (animal people apart from Burmecians being unremarked-upon) Marcus is basically a half-orc and Blank is some kind of patchwork Frankenstein boy. Why? IDK, this isn't that story.
I really appreciate the gutsiness it takes to keep the focus on what is happening to these characters, now, and just drop some hints here and there as to the wild and weird and sometimes wonderful history of the world around them.
- Pronouns
- Him/He
Yeah, the end of disc 1 is, again, a fucking banger. The PS1 games did not go gently into that disc 2. I wonder how much the disc-change impacted the game? Did they design the entire game and then divide it up into discs, or intentionally wrote it structured around the breaks, like TV shows?
I'm not sure if you're really lost or not, but 'south gate' is what they collectively call the entire thing where you go from alexandria and Lindblum. There's the airship gate, the gates that lead to below the mist (theoretically anyways) and I'm pretty sure some above-mist plateau entrances.
I think, given the light hearted comedy and low stakes, that it's supposed to be Dagger inside the bag throwing herself at his back to knock some restraint into him. The physics don't make sense unless you go loony toons, but... well, it fits, doesn't it?
For those that aren't Canary fans, this is a line that Zidane says to Blank during the play. In further Zidane callbacks, his plan to sneak Dagger across the boarder is essentially what Dagger and Steiner did, since she's the only known figure being looked for, they'll just hide her.
If you're fast enough, he just runs to the other side of the ally to stand guard at the other end, while dagger mentally screams and thinks 'don't look'. By blocking and dialogue, Stiener does see her at all when he checks the other location.
Well, they're not in Alexandria yet, the soldiers aren't sporting metal thongs. And the gate guards had the white-and-pike of Lindblum. And while it's a diplomatic incident to keep a princess from going home, it'll be worse if there's war against Brahne, you win, and she killed or exiled her only heir who went back home and you've got no one to put on the throne.
Ahh, there is that too.
You don't have to worry about missing anything, this is an optional side quest you can pick up at any time in the game, since the forest (like the marsh) is optional.
With that said, for each 'chunk' there's a specific set of chocographs you can find, and I get the feeling you didn't find them all. Some of them are just going to hang around until you explore more of the world.
. .. Are you playing with keyboard and mouse, or controller? FF9 did have dual-shock support, and I think the chocobo game would be a lot easier with an analong stick. Or even the old thumb-stressing d-pads.
Hey, you got the weaker fight in that forest! Also the harder one, ironically, but you shoulda listened to the moogles, not the thread on this one.
It's also great in that Quina is optional, but does have scenes like this that include them. They don't just get the 'reaction' dialogue, this is an entire character driven scene.
I get the feeling that being a legal/conscriptable adult in this world starts at like, nine. So that Vivi is only a little young to be witnessing his first genocide, Zidane has had the equivelent of a tour or two under his belt, and Freya's been out of the military long enough to get used to not being in it. The game has older middle aged characters, but so far most of the main cast has been woefully young for their implied experience.
By the way, there's a life threatening illness you should have gotten here if you didn't already. And while it's gettable later, you do have cause to want to get it before the disc change.
One thing this game is great at is making you excited to get new gear, especially gear that you can't buy in shops yet. It's not just a damage upgrade, but a possibility of new tactics and attacks for stealing the hard steal, or finding the hidden treasure. Speaking of which....
You actually just missed Stilzkin. In that Room. Just then. (Open the chest in the lap of the statue in the back)
Now this dialoge has been nagging me for awhile. Freya in her introduction said she was never going back, and only went home because of the word of an invading army. But now she's acting as if she was going to return anyways, based on rumors? I can't help but think this was a translation fumble, something more like 'I'm going home because of the invasion, and the rumors I hear make me suspect Brahne is behind it'?
Girl? You think she's more on the girl spectrum then the Woman side of things? You really ought to respect her bearing.
This game is really working hard to display the competence of the player characters, not against nameless enemies, but by how they're treated and treat their allies.
There's a very baked in assumption with these two that 'I know what I'm doing, and most people don't'. Which the game so far mostly plays out.
FF7 and 8 showed off how badass the player character is by showing all these wicked cool enemies and having you wreck them, while this game doesn't fall back on the 'elite military people' to explain why Vivi or Zidane are in the competence zone. They're typically shown to be competent by getting in and out of places, by looking for achievable tactical goals, and responding to the situation.
It's interesting to consider this, because you are just about to watch them all get utterly dominated combat wise.
Shock is, unless I'm mistaking, an ability that General Leo had in FF6 during his one battle in the game, which seemed suitably powerful but did nothing against Kefka's tricks.
It's probably on a 2-minute rotation.
The Coral ring is an exceedingly good accessory this early in the game. It does quite a lot, and since it's the 'standard' reward the game is probably expecting you to have it, or be so competent that FF9s anemic difficulty doesn't really matter.
She's so cool she gets her own special boss fight music, that starts before the fight and continues seamlessly through it and to the dialogue after. Really sells how she's the one setting the pace of what's happening. It doesn't seem to stop until the Kuja FMV starts, and that's got no music for the first 15 seconds, like they're taking special care to keep the two themes apart.
FF9 is a homage to the older pre-PS1 final fantasy games. Going back to the slaughter of entire peoples or races or towns is an idea they left at the back of the fridge for too long.
The fight is set to end after a period of time, or you deplete whatever HP it's decided she has. This means unlike a lot of boss fights, you can't literally steal for hours if you're that single minded and unlucky, you only have so long.
FF9 does have some incredibly cool women in it, it's a shame this game is still somewhat niche. Granted, these days most gamers who know the final fantasy series and played multiple games are closer to 40 then 30, even if they started on the game after this one.
Also it's may not be clear from the model (but you can clearly see it in the close up) but Beatrix is an overwhelming sword mage general with powerful abilities, while also being diasability rep for having one eye (with a classy eyepatch befitting her status). She's not playing the 'looks untouched by war on the outside' trope, which makes her even cooler.
I'm not sure if you're really lost or not, but 'south gate' is what they collectively call the entire thing where you go from alexandria and Lindblum. There's the airship gate, the gates that lead to below the mist (theoretically anyways) and I'm pretty sure some above-mist plateau entrances.
I think, given the light hearted comedy and low stakes, that it's supposed to be Dagger inside the bag throwing herself at his back to knock some restraint into him. The physics don't make sense unless you go loony toons, but... well, it fits, doesn't it?
For those that aren't Canary fans, this is a line that Zidane says to Blank during the play. In further Zidane callbacks, his plan to sneak Dagger across the boarder is essentially what Dagger and Steiner did, since she's the only known figure being looked for, they'll just hide her.
If you're fast enough, he just runs to the other side of the ally to stand guard at the other end, while dagger mentally screams and thinks 'don't look'. By blocking and dialogue, Stiener does see her at all when he checks the other location.
Well, they're not in Alexandria yet, the soldiers aren't sporting metal thongs. And the gate guards had the white-and-pike of Lindblum. And while it's a diplomatic incident to keep a princess from going home, it'll be worse if there's war against Brahne, you win, and she killed or exiled her only heir who went back home and you've got no one to put on the throne.
Ahh, there is that too.
You don't have to worry about missing anything, this is an optional side quest you can pick up at any time in the game, since the forest (like the marsh) is optional.
With that said, for each 'chunk' there's a specific set of chocographs you can find, and I get the feeling you didn't find them all. Some of them are just going to hang around until you explore more of the world.
. .. Are you playing with keyboard and mouse, or controller? FF9 did have dual-shock support, and I think the chocobo game would be a lot easier with an analong stick. Or even the old thumb-stressing d-pads.
Hey, you got the weaker fight in that forest! Also the harder one, ironically, but you shoulda listened to the moogles, not the thread on this one.
It's also great in that Quina is optional, but does have scenes like this that include them. They don't just get the 'reaction' dialogue, this is an entire character driven scene.
I get the feeling that being a legal/conscriptable adult in this world starts at like, nine. So that Vivi is only a little young to be witnessing his first genocide, Zidane has had the equivelent of a tour or two under his belt, and Freya's been out of the military long enough to get used to not being in it. The game has older middle aged characters, but so far most of the main cast has been woefully young for their implied experience.
By the way, there's a life threatening illness you should have gotten here if you didn't already. And while it's gettable later, you do have cause to want to get it before the disc change.
One thing this game is great at is making you excited to get new gear, especially gear that you can't buy in shops yet. It's not just a damage upgrade, but a possibility of new tactics and attacks for stealing the hard steal, or finding the hidden treasure. Speaking of which....
We deliver a letter to the local moogle (it informs us that Stiltzkin travels with a map of the entire world and rare items, so we definitely want to catch up with him eventually), and he thanks us by giving us a Kupo Nut, then another letter to carry.
You actually just missed Stilzkin. In that Room. Just then. (Open the chest in the lap of the statue in the back)
Now this dialoge has been nagging me for awhile. Freya in her introduction said she was never going back, and only went home because of the word of an invading army. But now she's acting as if she was going to return anyways, based on rumors? I can't help but think this was a translation fumble, something more like 'I'm going home because of the invasion, and the rumors I hear make me suspect Brahne is behind it'?
Girl? You think she's more on the girl spectrum then the Woman side of things? You really ought to respect her bearing.
Suddenly, a new character enters.
A foolhardy Burmecian soldier, looking to throw his life away in a desperate attempt against Queen Brahne's life. But Beatrix interposes herself before the queen can come to harm, and Zidane and Freya, realizing the soldier is about to be killed, jumped down to help him.
It's a terrible, terrible idea.
This game is really working hard to display the competence of the player characters, not against nameless enemies, but by how they're treated and treat their allies.
There's a very baked in assumption with these two that 'I know what I'm doing, and most people don't'. Which the game so far mostly plays out.
FF7 and 8 showed off how badass the player character is by showing all these wicked cool enemies and having you wreck them, while this game doesn't fall back on the 'elite military people' to explain why Vivi or Zidane are in the competence zone. They're typically shown to be competent by getting in and out of places, by looking for achievable tactical goals, and responding to the situation.
It's interesting to consider this, because you are just about to watch them all get utterly dominated combat wise.
So let's pull out that pin from earlier.
Beatrix is Celes.
Freya is next with a Lancer that hits for 275 damage, which is decent, except-
Beatrix retaliates with Shock, a sharp blow and a wave of light dealing nearly as much damage as Freya's max HP. Given that she went in injured, she instantly goes down. Fuck.
Shock is, unless I'm mistaking, an ability that General Leo had in FF6 during his one battle in the game, which seemed suitably powerful but did nothing against Kefka's tricks.
In most typical cases, it's a one-hit-kill, that she does basically at will (or maybe there's a move rotation, I dunno.) It means that you're typically either recovering from, or preparing for, her next Shock attack.It's probably on a 2-minute rotation.
The Coral ring is an exceedingly good accessory this early in the game. It does quite a lot, and since it's the 'standard' reward the game is probably expecting you to have it, or be so competent that FF9s anemic difficulty doesn't really matter.
She's so cool she gets her own special boss fight music, that starts before the fight and continues seamlessly through it and to the dialogue after. Really sells how she's the one setting the pace of what's happening. It doesn't seem to stop until the Kuja FMV starts, and that's got no music for the first 15 seconds, like they're taking special care to keep the two themes apart.
FF9 is a homage to the older pre-PS1 final fantasy games. Going back to the slaughter of entire peoples or races or towns is an idea they left at the back of the fridge for too long.
The fight is set to end after a period of time, or you deplete whatever HP it's decided she has. This means unlike a lot of boss fights, you can't literally steal for hours if you're that single minded and unlucky, you only have so long.
FF9 does have some incredibly cool women in it, it's a shame this game is still somewhat niche. Granted, these days most gamers who know the final fantasy series and played multiple games are closer to 40 then 30, even if they started on the game after this one.
Also it's may not be clear from the model (but you can clearly see it in the close up) but Beatrix is an overwhelming sword mage general with powerful abilities, while also being diasability rep for having one eye (with a classy eyepatch befitting her status). She's not playing the 'looks untouched by war on the outside' trope, which makes her even cooler.
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ZerbanDaGreat
Daemon Noble of D E M O G R A P H I C S
- Pronouns
- They/them
What an odd thing to say...
Legendary.
UNDEFEATED Foot-in-Mouth Style Master. No one does it like Zidane.
If you look closely, you can pinpoint the exact moment Vivi's heart rips in half...
It triggers Quina's first Trance.
Quina: "Real shit???"
OH NOW YOU GIVE ME A CLOSE-UP SHOT
Stock Break is definitely some kind of Limit Break. Beatrix shouts "You're no match for me!" and then hits the party with a sword wave that hits everyone and brings Zidane and Freya (my only two surviving characters) down to 1 HP.
This causes Zidane to enter Trance, which, as it turns out, will not matter.
The battle ends.
I'm fairly certain that it's pure coincidence that the damage from Beatrix's "total HP-1 damage" finishing move brought Zidane into Trance, but in a way it's almost perfect; she unveils her super move, wipes the floor with the party, Zidane goes into his super mode… And it's still not enough, he still can barely keep standing at all.
God, sure Zidane going into Trance right at the end and getting owned anyway is fine and dandy for LP purposes but putting myself in the shoes of an actual player I would be so fucking pissed about Zidane transforming right after it would be of any use whatsoever and wiping out his Trance meter.