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[R^2]

Sure enough, a tiny music box prompts another flashback...


Stella: ...You're leaving again so soon?
Dorgann: ...No. I'm not going anywhere.
Stella: The spasms aren't as frequent anymore... I can get by on my own now. Still, it would be nice if you stayed... not to take care of me, but just so we could be together, as a family...
Dorgann: I know. But get some sleep. You're still sick, and you need the rest.
Stella: I will, dear. Just let me finish this up first.




Dorgann: So you were awake.
Bartz: Daddy, are you going to get more bad guys?
Dorgann: That's what I do.
Bartz: I wanna come!
Dorgann: You need to stay here and take care of your mother. Don't tell her you saw me leave, all right? It'll be our little secret.
Bartz: Okay, Daddy.
Dorgann: Now it's time for good little boys to go to sleep. Stella! Worry about that tomorrow and come get some rest.







For seeing Dorgann's willingness to run out on his dying wife, the bard teaches you Alluring Air, a song that confuses all enemies.

[R^2]

It wouldn't be a young male Japanese protagonist returning to the place he grew up without a lovelorn young woman pining away for him.


Although the shopkeepers do in fact offer a discount on consumable items. The weapon and armor shops upstairs sell ninja spell scrolls, shuriken, ninja armor, and hoods. Makes you wonder who's buying all that stuff.


Another flashback!




A young Bartz climbs up onto the roof, where the hide-and-seek seeker can't even see him from the ground.


And... uh...


...the kid doesn't even look for him. Dag.


And Bartz nearly falls to his death trying to get down.


Yeah, all these flashbacks mostly make me nostalgic for happier times with my family, but that one reminded me I still owe you an asskicking!

[Friday]

So originally Butz was from Lix.

Not quite as badgood as Welcome to Asaram, but what is?

[Zaratustra]

Only question I have is how the hell he left the city.

[R^2]

A valid question! One that is never answered.

[Classic]

Well, Bartz... ... is the warrior of the wind crystal... ... Maybe a hot air balloon? ...

[patito]

He starts off with a chocobo and he knows how to ride and tame black chocobos.

[TA]

It wouldn't be a young male Japanese protagonist returning to the place he grew up without a lovelorn young woman pining away for him.

[R^2]

... ... ... ... ...

Jesus, dude, light a match.

[R^2]

Where was I? Oh yes. Black chocobo.


Bartz: Cid... We found Crescent Island, but the fire-powered ship sank!
Cid: Oh, so?
Mid: Whatever. We'll just build another one!
Cid: More importantly, we've learned the whereabouts of King Tycoon!
Lenna: What!?
Cid: He was seen in Karnak. From there, he moved on to the Desert of Shifting Sands...
Faris: Shifting Sands, you say?
Mid: It's the desert to the west of here, where the sand flows like water...
Cid: ...Thus the name. It's impossible for people to enter. They say that past the desert is the Town of Ruin, but no one can actually get there to see.
Bartz: If no one can enter the desert, how did the king manage to do it?
Cid: Good question.
Mid: Witnesses claimed to see him floating in midair.
Bartz: Floating!?
Lenna: Father...
Faris: Come on, it's not like we're getting any closer to that desert by sitting around here.
Galuf: Doesn't matter how close we get TO it if we don't know how to get IN!
Faris: Maybe we'll see it and be inspired. Don't tell me you're afraid of some sand, old man...
Galuf: Please! When I was your age, we crossed burning sand every day and liked it! Come on, Bartz!
Bartz: Let's check it out!


Naturally, the next destination is a place with no forests for the black chocobo to land in, so we've gotta hoof it.




Stepping on a sand flow is a typical video-game conveyor. You can't step off until it's finished shunting you wherever it is you're going -- in this case, all the flows dump you right back at the start.


Mid: It ain't over 'til the fat lady sings, and the orchestra hasn't even
started tuning up yet!
Cid: We'll build a bridge!
Mid: It's a little risky, but you guys are all about danger, right?
Cid: How it works is, we use this bell to call the sandworm...
Mid: ...then you guys trash it...
Cid: ...and there's your bridge!
Galuf: Not the most sophisticated of methods...
Cid: You aren't that sophisticated of a guy! I think it suits you fine!
Cid: All right, we're going to call the sandworm!


Yeah, let's get rollin'.


"Ha ha, now that you're committed to your current party setup, we're going to give you an important hint! Suckers!"


jingle jingle jingle

[R^2]

The Sandworm periodically switches which hole it pokes its head out of. Naturally, you have to target the right one to do damage.


Targeting an empty hole is quite possible, and indeed likely considering the Sandworm's habit of moving to a different hole between you choosing an attack and that attack resolving.


Targeting an empty hole automatically counters with Gravity. Using an enemy-wide spell (such as a summon) automatically hits both holes, and so you get Gravitied twice. The Sandworm itself also counters with Gravity when it's hit by magic.


Aside from its counters, Sandworm uses Quicksand, an attack that deals a little damage and continually drains HP. Either Quicksand or Gravity alone wouldn't be dangerous, but both together can be problematic.


If you don't want to play Whack-a-Mole, a single casting of Aqua Breath is generally sufficient to kill the Sandworm. As a desert enemy, it's super-vulnerable to water attacks. Wait... didn't we learn Aqua Breath in a desert? Hmmm...




The rest of the Shifting Sands is a conveyor maze. With random encounters, of course.


The end is marked by the same cactus as the beginning.

[R^2]

I always parsed this as rhyming with "bone" or "tone", but it very well may be that the town is named that because it is gone.








The whole map is playing hide-and-seek with King Tycoon.






 !!!

[R^2]

Faris: ...
Lenna: I knew it! You really ARE my sister!
Faris: I'm sorry... I wasn't certain at first, and then I didn't think I should tell you...
Lenna: Sister!
Faris: Lenna...


Galuf awakens, and realizes he's trapped.


Lenna: This place is strange...
Faris: Say...what happened to the old man?
Bartz: Huh? He's not here?
Lenna: We must have gotten separated when we fell...
Bartz: He'll be okay. He's a tough old cuss! I'm sure we'll run into him again later. Come on, let's get going.




Galuf leaps into the hole nearby...


And inspired by the Sandworm battle, pops out in front of the party.


Everybody laughs ending! Ha ha ha!

[R^2]

The party disappears, the sparkles fly offscreen, and the world map pans by.


...toward Crescent.

[R^2]

It's a warp device. Using it overloaded it, so it broke. Now we're stuck here, wherever "here" is.


Like the ship graveyard, it has surprisingly well-made beds to sleep in.


There's a scavenger hunt in the room with the beds, too. Try to push the switch and you're told instead to check the planters in the interior room, a journal on a nearby table, an urn in a different room, and finally a book tells you to pull the switch. How needlessly tedious! The reward is two shuriken and the Mini spell.

[R^2]

Pushing the switch to open a door also causes a cave-in underneath Cid and Mid.


It's the Fire-Powered ship!






Cid and Mid drop in from the chocobo forest.

Bartz: Cid, Mid!
Cid: Oww...
Mid: What the... Bartz? Lenna, Faris, Galuf...what're you guys doing here?
Bartz: I think that's our line! Where'd you guys come from?
Mid: We rode the black chocobo back to Crescent Island. Then, all of a sudden a hole opened up beneath us, and we fell...
Bartz: Wait, so we're underneath Crescent Island? That explains the fire-powered ship being here...
Mid: This place must've been built by the Ancients.
Bartz: Huh... And this propeller ship?
Mid: Uhh...maybe you should ask Grandpa about that. Huh? Wait, where'd he go?


He went belowdecks.

[R^2]

Cid: Voila! That should do it!
Bartz: That should do what?
Cid: That should get this ship moving!








Cid: Isn't it obvious? It's an airship! Amazing... I've only ever seen these in old texts! I can't believe I'm getting to use one in the flesh! ...Er, well, you know what I mean!

[R^2]

Consider this from the monster's perspective. It's not like it could have possibly known the airship was going to launch now, after a lifetime of being inert. Suddenly the poor thing is clinging on for dear life, hundreds of feet in the air. "Dum de dum dum... hey, what's that noise? Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii--"


The Cray Claw is too disoriented from the shock of being airborne to put up a fight. I mean, it tries, but in game terms you're stuck until you can beat it -- there's no way back out to the world map once you fall into Tycoon's pit in Gohn. So the solution is to make the fight so easy there might as well not be a fight in the first place.


Galuf threw a lightning scroll and killed it immediately. Cray Claw didn't even get to move.




Son did you just make a Red Lobster joke in my LP?




There's a short scene where Cid and Mid offer to fix the airship from the damage Cray Claw did to it. Your party reminds the player that the goal is to stop Exdeath from reviving, and the skies are yours to explore!

[R^2]

There's a pyramid in the middle of the Shifting Sands, but there's no way to get there given how the sands flow.


To have had a better view of this little forest near the beginning of the game might have been a good idea, since you can't really tell there were four monoliths there until most of them are gone. But really, who cares if Exdeath comes back now? With three of the crystals broken there's no wind, the water is stagnating, and fires are losing their warmth. The world is borked anyway, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.


Anyway, the next goal is to return to Gohn.






...at which point a cutscene reveals that the ruined town is just the topmost section of a massive floating city, and the party fell into it thanks to Tycoon's trap. Then they warped back out to get to the airship dock.


Which is, in fact, the next destination.


Cid: Save your breath...
Mid: ...'coz we saw the ruins through the telescope! This is bad...the earth crystal is way up there! The ancient Ronkans amplified the earth crystal to make their town float. But once they realized amplifying the crystal could make it shatter, they stopped the machine.
Cid: Shake a leg, miscreants! Somebody's turned the machine back on!
Lenna: It couldn't -- you don't think that Father...
Faris: Never! He would never do such a thing!
Bartz: How're we supposed to get that high?
Cid: With this...
Mid: ...Adamantite! If we reinforce the ship with it, it'll fly higher! But we'll need to find some more...
Galuf: That's simple enough! That meteorite I came here in... I remember seeing some adamantite reserves inside!
Bartz: Are you sure?
Galuf: You calling me a liar!?
Bartz: Of course not... It's just that your memory's still kinda spotty, right?
Galuf: Pish-posh! The adamantite part is clear as day!
Faris: It's good a place as any to start. Let's go check it out.
Cid: We'll stay and get things prepared.
Mid: You guys hurry and bring us some adamantite!

[R^2]

Before that, we swing back by Tycoon for another cutscene.


Lenna: Yes... Is something wrong?
Faris: Not wrong, just...strange. I was just a wee lass when I fell overboard... Between that and the shock, I forgot a lot of my life here.
Lenna: Faris -- Sarisa...
Faris: But for some reason, being back here -- just being in this room is making those memories return...


Sarisa: Cure... Cura... Curaga...  Cure... Cura... Curaga...
Jenica: All right, that's enough for today.
Sarisa: Phew... I'm pooped!
Jenica: Your mother has asked you to put Princess Lenna to bed. Take care of that while I mark your test, please.
Sarisa: Okay!
Jenica: And come straight back here! No dawdling!
Sarisa: Okay... Aw, man...


Sarisa: Hi-hi Lenna... Tomorrow, me 'n Papa're gonna ride the wind drake.
Lenna: Papa, Papuuu!
Sarisa: Flyin' up high is s'posed t' be the bestest thing ever, Papa says. An' when you look down on them, all the people're s'posed to look like they cast Float on themselves!








Faris: Yeah?
Lenna: Perhaps we should keep this a secret from the chancellor for now. He would only make a big fuss if he knew, and certainly wouldn't let you leave the palace again...
Faris: Aye... And we have to get out there and find Papa...