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[McDohl]

This Cid is the second-worst Cid.

Only because the worst Cid is from FF1, where he doesn't exist.

[R^2]

Schadenfreude


The worst Cid.


Cid: ...
Lenna: Forgive me, that was rude...
Cid: No, you don't have to apologize. It's the truth, after all. I'm to blame for everything... It's been years... One day, I found an ancient tome in the Library of the Ancients. It said that thousands of years ago, the crystals held much more power than they do now. So, I studied the crystals at Tycoon, Walse, and Karnak, and build machines to enhance them... But I was wrong... increasing their power output only caused them to shatter... Oh, it's all my fault!
Bartz: But why are you locked up?
Cid: I was too late to save the crystals in Tycoon and Walse... Figured I could at least save the one here in Karnak. But when I tried to switch off the machine, they threw me in here.
Bartz: So, you're in the same boat as us...
Cid: You're here to protect the crystal?
Bartz: Yup! They asked us to!
Cid: What!? A crystal shard... Who are you people!?




The chancellor hurries in and unlocks the cell -- our cell, not Cid's. It's like he knew of the botched escape attempt already.

Chancellor: You were right all along... The crystal's cracked!
Cid: What!?
Chancellor: I turned off the amplifier but the crystal's power output has only increased...
Cid: The fire-powered ship...
Chancellor: Yes? What about it?
Cid: Most likely the fire-powered ship is what's leeching power from the crystal.
Chancellor: Professor, please. We cannot do this alone. Please help us!


Chancellor: What? They were seen coming out of the meteorite. They're in cahoots
with that werewolf!

Cid: If they can't help, I guess I can't either.
Chancellor: ...All right, Professor.
Cid: You're willing to help me, right? I'll go ahead to the fire-powered ship. It's not exactly a safe place to be...you get ready and meet me there. I'll be waiting!

[R^2]

Like the town, Castle Karnak is full of open flames.


Some of which block the path to lucre.






That sounds useful, considering there's no wind.




Where indeed...




The soldiers scare away the werewolf with some explosives, since apparently everyone in Karnak just carries those around in case they need to break out of jail or scare off a lycanthrope or open a stubborn pickle jar or something.

[R^2]

They sure are.


The magic shop is open now, too.




Oh, deal with it. You wouldn't want us all to die horribly because we didn't stop to stock up on weapons, armor, and magic, would you?

Cid: Just as I suspected -- the ship's engine is what's draining the crystal's power.
Bartz: The engine?
Cid: Yes... If the engine isn't stopped -- and quickly -- the fire crystal will shatter. Will you go? You can get inside here...but it'll be tough going from here on. The ship's packed with monsters! Good luck, kids... We're counting on you.

[A²]

This Cid is the second-worst Cid.

Only because the worst Cid is from FF1, where he doesn't exist.

Retconned into existing, and then made a major character in a few other games.

[R^2]

The Fire-Powered Ship is a technological marvel, meaning there's elevators and conveyors and switch puzzles and ducts to crawl through and it's laid out like a maze.


It is, as promised, full of monsters. Some of them have torn off their own faces and are only connected by their tongues, which is kind of weird.


There's some treasure to be found, including some Thief-exclusive gear. The Moonring Blade hits from the back row for approaching-barefist damage, and the Thief Gloves make stealing more viable.




I make a couple of changes to the party lineup for the engine room.




Queen Karnak is surrounded by the ring of ectoplasm we've seen a couple of times before.






The engine bursts into flame, then the fire flows around Queen Karnak and straight at the party. It behaves awfully strangely for fire, almost like it's some sort of...

[R^2]

...Liquid Flame.




Liquid Flame has three forms, and each time it's hit, it counterattacks and switches forms. The humanoid form hits the whole party with Blaze, the hand form hits one character with Fira, and the tornado form heals itself with Fira. The tornado form evades all physical attacks and the hand form is immune to ice, but other than that, pounding on it and casting Blizzara works.


Of course, Mystic Knights can do both at once.


If I were a mite smarter, I'd have equipped Bartz with the Ice Rod before this battle to boost the power of his Blizzara spells even more. He'd break four digits if I had.


While it's possible to sit and wait out the Liquid Flame in its tornado form -- the form doesn't attack the party and quickly runs out of MP -- the humanoid form's Blaze attack is downright lethal. Galuf as a white mage can't keep up by casting Cura or Raise, but eventually we win anyway.

[R^2]

The fire-powered ship engine explodes...


...knocking Queen Karnak to her senses.


Bartz: Your highness...
Queen Karnak: The crystals...it's not just the machines that are destroying them... Something evil is using their power to resurrect itself... Please... save the fire crystal. It's in the room just through that pipe...


Hang on, isn't the fire crystal supposed to be under Castle Karnak? How the hell did we get here from belowdecks on the fire-powered ship?




Like the knight in the water crystal room, the Werewolf recognizes Galuf in an instant.

Bartz: We won't let you touch the crystal, werewolf!
Wolf: Stand down. I am not your enemy!
Bartz: I'm not so sure about that!
Wolf: Galuf, say something! What's happened... is something wrong?
Galuf: You know me? Ughhh... Can't remember a thing... Who in blazes am I, anyway...


Hey, a Karnak soldier. What's he doing here?


Oh.


ohhhhhh

[R^2]

Werewolf is nearly crushed by the advancing machinery.


You get the typical "No I can't leave you" "But thou must" "We won't! We'll risk our lives for you!" "You have to leave!" back-and-forth you've seen in pretty much every piece of fiction to ever come out of Japan. This one has flames springing up and a warning that the crystal will burn everything in the room to cinders when it explodes, but I'm skipping it anyway.


The problem is eventually solved when the floor drops out from under the party.


And then the crystal explodes, and Wolf is dust.

[Thad]

This Cid is the second-worst Cid.

Only because the worst Cid is from FF1, where he doesn't exist.

You must be forgetting 8.

I wish I could.

[R^2]

The party is dropped into, yes, the basement of Karnak. How did that even




...and we didn't even get any shards from it.


I... what? That raises a lot of difficult questions.


That just raises further questions!


gawd


The good news is, you can get to those chests that were blocked off by flames before. The bad news is, they're almost all monster attacks that eat up time on the clock.


No small number of them are Gigas, which are fond of Aero and Aerora spells. If he'd ever cast Aerora, Galuf could have learned it, but alas!


There are also random encounters with sorcerers and sergeants -- gently implied that the sergeant is the same guy with a new pack of dogs each time. He flees if you beat the Cur Nakk first.


Some of the stuff you find in the chests is quite nice, including the Esuna spell, a Main Gauche dagger, an Elven Cloak, and a Ribbon. Alas, no job can equip the Ribbon.


Outside, at last!


Dammit sarge!

[R^2]

Lenna: He's no ordinary soldier!
Galuf: Show us your true form!
Sergeant: Hahahahaha! You wish to know my true identity?

I wish you'd all stop talking and just fight. Time's a-wastin'!

Sergeant: I am the famed bounty hunter... Iron Claw! MORPH!


Holy bejeezus what a terrible monster design. It can cast Death Claw, causing paralysis and dropping HP to critical levels, but doesn't. Which is a shame, as Death Claw is blue magic.


We put it out of its stupid-looking misery.


Once the party escapes, the castle explodes. I still don't get it.

[R^2]

Well, isn't that convenient.


Beastmaster, Geomancer, and Ninja.


Anyhow, the castle blowing up broke down part of the wall Queen Karnak built. So now we have a way to proceed.


The queen is in the inn, hallucinating about chaos and clouds of darkness and maybe even other Final Fantasy villains.

[R^2]

Cid goes to drink himself into a stupor at the Karnak pub. I could follow him, but all he does is mope about having never invented that machine and how everything's his fault.


Instead I head back into the fire-powered ship's underbelly. When they're by themselves, Crew Dust use Flash. It's a partywide blind effect. Galuf picks it up for everyone.


The Wild Nakks outside Karnak know ???, too. That's damage equal to the caster's max HP minus current HP. In other words, you do as much damage as you've taken.


South of Karnak is this desert here...


Every encounter therein is a Dhorne Chimera. And that's bad, because they're super-overpowered for this part of the game.


But they are obliging enough to teach us Aqua Breath.






After which Galuf smashes the Frost Rod, releasing a Blizzaga spell to kill the chimera.


Whew!

[R^2]

Ninja are what you've come to expect from Final Fantasy using that word. They dual-wield, they throw weapons, they're fast and kind of fragile. Edge's Ninjutsu magic from the last game is replaced in this one: Flame, Flood, and Blitz are now Fire, Water, and Lightning scrolls that are used with the !Throw command. !Smoke and !Image are their own abilities learned in the first two job levels of Ninja. The remaining levels teach First Strike, allowing the party to ambush monsters more often, !Throw, and Dual Wield -- the latter two do what they advertise.


Beastmasters are the job that uses that whip I picked up from Magissa way back when. Their shtick is that they can !Catch monsters that are low on HP, then !Release the monster they hold captive to do its signature attack. Their job levels teach !Calm, which resets a monsters initiative meter; !Control, which gives the Beastmaster control over what attacks the monster does on what targets until the controlled monster is hit with something; Equip Whips, which is exactly as useful as it sounds, and !Catch to pass on to other jobs.

Some Blue Magic can only be learned by !Controlling a monster, so someone will get Beastmaster practice sooner or later.


The Geomancer wear their pajamas and bobble hats into battle. How cute! They can command the power of the battle terrain they're in with !Gaia, and have innate Find Pits and Light Step. Their job commands teach their abilities in that order. Find Pits reveals traps before you step on them, and Light Step ignores damage from hazard floors.

When using !Gaia, each terrain has four attacks associated with it. When the command is used, the game randomly generates a number between 1 and the user's experience level. If the number is between 1 and 11, the first attack is used; between 12 and 21, the second; between 22 and 51, the third; above 51, the fourth. So only high-level Geomancers will ever see the best terrain spells.

In a forest, for example, low-level Geomancers will be limited to Branch Arrow, a moderate-power attack to one enemy. Slightly better Geomancers -- we're already at levels that give a chance for this -- can use Leaf Dance to do wind-elemental damage and inflict darkness. Eventually a Geomancer learns to use Branch Spear, doing heavy damage to one opponent, and Bindweed, which damages and slows an enemy. Outside of forests, the attacks change to take better advantage of the terrain -- no reason to try to use Branch Spear when you're in a desert with no trees!

[Mothra]

I completely forgot this game just like, had werewolves. Pretty much everything else is standard FF fare, but this time, sometimes, people are werewolves. Nobody thought twice about it.

[R^2]

Not even "were"wolves, really.

More... guys in wolf fursuits, for all the difference it makes.

[Rico]

A surprising number of powerful enemies and bosses are vulnerable to Death Claw, if you can stand a few misses. Oh well, getting Aqua Breath right away almost makes up for it.

[R^2]

There's really no strong story reason to come here. It's just the next available destination on the map.


Who the hell is Mid, and why should I care?


Oh.


"There's a reason you'll be getting into random encounters in the basement. It's a dumb one, but that's the reason."


Neat!


Bartz is too dumb to read.


Oh. nvm


"There's a reason there's a boss fight in the basement. It's a dumb one, but that's the reason."

[R^2]

This is the first game to have Blue Mages in it, so a little hint at what they do is warranted sooner or later.


You also might not have thought to go back to Tycoon, so there's another nudge.




The last book is possessed!


Every encounter in the Library is like this. It starts with one monster, usually a Page 32 or Page 64, and when you kill it, another pops up. Might be a different page. Might be the same one again. But battles always take a goddamned long time, and you only get experience for one monster no matter how many you fight. A pittance of Exp, a handful of gil, and 1 ABP for each fight, when the fights themselves can take four or five times longer than the ones outside?

I really hate the Library of the Ancients.


It doesn't help that the basement levels start off with a maze that has you stepping on invisible switches to move bookshelves around to navigate through, and gets worse from there. There's no random encounters on this level, but there are plenty more to be had in the others.


There are even bookshelves that intentionally leap into your path.


So you have to go around.