Well fuck, you can eat orange peel too. I just can't imagine why anybody would want to. (I usually pop the stem and blossom ends off the core and give them to my rat, throwing away the bit in the middle with the seeds.)

(And I always peel bananas from the blossom end. It's a good trick if you ever have to peel fifty or so at once, as I occasionally have to at work.)

Characters not recruited get a portrait hovering over wherever their home is. Mog and Umaro get Narshe, Cyan gets Doma, Gogo gets the Zone Eater's Belly dungeon, and Gau gets the Cave on the Veldt even though that's not where you find him. Celes, Edgar, Setzer, and Terra get their own scenes as usual since you can't miss them; Sabin and Locke modify the scenes they'd otherwise be in.


Relm, Shadow, and Strago all get the same pan over Thamasa.






The rest of the ending plays out the same way. That's another LP in the can, and the end of my "Let's Play Every Goddamn Final Fantasy Game from the Game Boy Advance" series.

Celes drops Locke's bandana, as before...


...but it's Setzer who dives in to rescue her. Not that it changes the music, it still (in versions not desynched) switches to Locke's theme when he does.




She says this even if Cid lives... which now that I think about it, means she never found the bandana in the first place.




Terra's bit remains the same, even though she's only added to the party in a cutscene.

Whoosh! Terra flies in.




The rest of this scene plays out as before, with the magicite disintegrating and so on.




Cyan's and Setzer's parts of the ending are also the same.

Lookin' pretty sparse.


During the conversation, there were parts where Terra mouthed off to Kefka before. Since she's not available here, Edgar does the job instead... and glitches out a little. Rather than returning to the ranks of the party, he hangs there in the air while everyone (including Edgar himself) gives their reasons for living.


Terra and Locke are on those spires in a full party. Edgar and Celes do it now.


At the end of Kefka's speech, we cut away. Terra looks up with a start, and runs out of the basement.






Terra flies away! Good thing nobody saw her do it, since we skipped the part where everyone realizes and comes to grips with her esper form.




Kefka gets some extra threats in after Terra's cutscene. He doesn't say that if she's already present.

Super-fast-forward continues. If you get Cyan before Gau, he has a hint for getting Gau. It's weird how many people push you in that direction since all you have to do is go to the Veldt.


So I do.




Cyan also has some encouraging words for Lola, should you return to talk to her.


Pick up Mog and Umaro...


In the Cave on the Veldt, Interceptor stands watch over a wounded Relm. Shadow got exploded, fell a mile or two to the ground on chunks of debris, got exploded at least one more time, and fell into a fissure that ripped open the earth from underneath him. We won't be seeing him again... so Relm takes his place.

Why am I back here again? (I'll not post the hourlong sojourn through the Dragon's Den.)


For this guy. He looks like Ultima Weapon, right?


He looks a lot like Ultima Weapon. He's Omega Weapon, actually!


I knew I stole that other Ultima Weapon for a reason...


SUCK GENJI GLOVE MASTER'S SCROLL ULTIMA WEAPON, JERKFACE


I'm pretty sure that should be doing a lot more damage than it is, but whaddyagonnado

Omega Weapon has three lives at 65,500 HP each, like Kaiser Dragon had his five. Omega also dies if you chip his MP down to 0 (from its own 65,500), but given his Magic Defense I can't get Rasp to do more than 500 or so damage at a time -- and that's Terra using Trance.

Furthermore, Omega Weapon counters attacks. On his first life, he uses either Freezing Dust -- being frozen solid is a status that can't be blocked -- or Dischord. Having your level halved in any hit or damage calculations for the rest of the fight is a big deal.


Omega uses one or the other no matter what he's hit with, so every hit has to count. If Strago uses Forcefield to null out elemental attacks -- because Omega is also capable of Flare Star, Tsunami, Southern Cross, Quake, Aero, Atomic Rays, Absolute Zero, Wave Cannon, and Magnitude8 -- Omega gets confused and counters to the first person in the party instead of Strago himself. I spent a lot of this first round with Terra frozen solid, only to thaw her out with a fire spell, another Forcefield to go off, and Terra to get frozen again.


Terra can output about 5000 damage eight times a turn, so two of her turns are usually enough to deplete Omega's HP for one phase of the battle. Omega steps up his game in the next phase, adding Gravity Bomb and Metal Cutter to his repertoire. He now counters twice for each time he's hit: once with an attack or Missile, and then with another Missile or Blaster.


Everyone's job is playing defensively so Terra can bring the thunder to Omega. Strago sets up Forcefields and Mighty Guard, Celes keeps everyone's HP up with dualcast white magic, and Sabin spends most of his time keeping everyone Reraised.


Oh, and did I mention? Every twenty seconds Omega charges up for a super attack, either Grand Delta, Mind Blast, or Forsaken. Grand Delta seems to be the most common, for about 6000 damage to the whole party. Mind Blast (pictured here) comes up once, but three people blocked it and Terra ignored whatever it was supposed to do.


At the end of his second phase, Omega drops Heartless Angel.


I have just enough time to recover from that before Forsaken comes up. That's about 8000 damage to everybody.


But Terra only needs enough time to get one Quick off. Quick is two turns, and two turns is all it takes for her to crank out enough damage to remove all the HP in Omega's final phase.


...man, at least finishing the Soul Shrine would have given me a bragging rights reward. All you get for beating Omega is to see your lead character pose. There's not even a victory fanfare!

Battle 53...


Battle 62...


The point of Glutturns isn't to give away all your good healing items, of course.


Each one has a good thing to steal. The one that demands X-Ethers gives you a shot at another Master's Scroll. The two that come later (that I missed thanks to the RNG determining I just shouldn't fight them this round through the Shrine) give a shot at Celestriads and Souls of Thamasa -- the only way to get more than one Soul of Thamasa in the game.


Battle 87 is against the Brachiosaur -- "Brachioraidos" in Japanese, like the superboss in FF4 Advance -- which was the strongest monster in the SNES version. It hits with Disaster and other nasty stuff, but drops the Celestriad once in a while. How much of a threat is it now? Well, I already have four Celestriads, and only one of them was free...




Battle 97. Fiend Dragons are still assholes.

Ah, a new magicite! The fourth of the four new espers in this game.


It had better be!




Yep. The last magicite, and the last spell in the game it teaches... is gravity-themed. Most enemies at this point are immune to having their HP split by gravity spells, and those that aren't are so weak I might as well use Ultima or Flare and kill them outright. I don't even care about that HP bonus!

This whole dungeon was a waste of time.


We out.


...can't wait.

God, why is that even a problem? Let's go!




You look like Ultima Weapon.


What? You invited me. I got your stone slab!


Well, I did beat Ultima Weapon before, then Ultima Weapon But Better again in Kefka's Tower...


Yeah, I know, but I try to make my Let's Plays reasonably comprehensive.


...dragonkind?




I am strength given form, I am matter/I am antimatter, blah blah