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[R^2]

Music: Metamorphosis


There are Naude in the way in random encounters to eat up the clock, of course. They're not difficult; one application of Rasp drains all their MP for a KO and leaves them without the spell power to use their Silence counter before they go. My bafflement with these enemies comes instead from one of the strategy guides I read for the SNES version of the game: it called these monsters "bovine-headed".








At several points the continent forces a pause in your flight to fall apart, almost under the party's feet.


There's a fragile bit of land just below this Elixir. If you approach from the left, it falls away and you can't reach the item orb. You have to go around a gap and approach from the right.

[R^2]

The sparkle Kefka threw out was in fact Nelapa.


It starts the battle by casting Doom on the entire party -- one person twice if there aren't four present, not that that makes any difference.


Nelapa's entire purpose is to stall the party, so his four elemental immunities and auto-Reflect are there just to be a pain to navigate around. After being attacked six times, he casts Roulette to kill someone, so magic doesn't work and fighting is risky. However, Lores don't reflect and don't trigger his Roulette counter... and Nelapa only has 2800 HP. A few applications of 1000 Needles ends the battle without a hitch.


It teaches Strago a new Lore, too. Whatever happened to that guy, anyway?


As tempting as it may be...


It'd be kind of a dick move to leave Shadow behind to die.


He takes his sweet time, though, to make sure you've reeeeeally thought about whether or not to save your own hide.


Whew, there he is. With five seconds to go, and that's before he spoke his line.


Jump for it!

[R^2]

Sparks fly off of the unbalanced Warring Triad in chaotic, erratic ways...


...many of them falling to the earth below.






Where the magic strikes, the earth is rent asunder -- a mountain rises, then one slope immediately collapses and forms a pit...


...before a fissure opens.


Several Imperials and Returners are in the path of the new chasm.


Several of them fall into the rift as it's torn open...


...and are surely crushed when the ground spasms the pit closed again.

[R^2]

Human and monster alike are tossed into new fissures, and pulled up mountains as they're formed underfoot.














Explosions wrack the countryside all over the world.






Entire continents are ripped apart.

[Friday]

Kill Cid, because I want to see if the suicide scene is a callback to the "Celes throwing Flowers off the Opera balcony" like I just noticed while reading this LP. Yeah, I might be a bit thick.

My memory says it is.

And also because saving Cid has absolutely no effect on anything. Rumor says you can't get Palliwhatever Esper if you don't save him, but that's false.

[Mothra]

Seconded.

[Roger]

The fact that the Esper you get from that island is the one whose special attack is making the entire party do a massive jump was lost on me until about two days ago.

[Sharkey]

Music: Sharkey's theme

Your offering is acceptable.

[Niku]

Shabba dabba doobie dabbAAAAAAAHHH SHIT

So, one thing I noticed about Mr. Chupon, that I never noticed before?

His ass? IS ANOTHER FACE. If he wasn't already nightmarish enough, the man is a living flying demon catdog.

Also apparently that's an exhaust pipe poking out from his midsection. Which... raises many other questions.

I mention this because, even knowing this, and even taking into account that Mr. Chupon is perhaps the single most horrifying monster in any Final Fantasy game, the friendship between he and Ultros is by far the most adorable companionship in all of gaming.

I met most of my friends on Prodigy back in the day entirely starting through an SNES A-L thread titled "MR. CHUPON'S BUTT"

[Zaratustra]

Cid just sort of vanishes either way as soon as you leave the island, I think.

[Classic]

No. He hangs out there and says something unimportant.

[TA]

He's really better off dead.

[Classic]

Because he doesn't change out of his...
...
Apparel?

[Sharkey]

It has been a while, but isn't "fuck him with dead fish until he dies from it" an option? From his costuming I think he might have had a premonition.

[R^2]

Music: There Isn't Any.




Slow pan over the sea to a tiny island. The sea itself is sickly purple, the sky stained red with atmospheric dust from the major remodeling of the continents. The land itself is rocky and barren, with only a handful of trees.








Enter Cid.






Celes: How... how long have I been sleeping?
Cid: One year, as of today. I was starting to think you might be out for good.
Celes: A whole year... You've been taking care of me all this time?
Cid: Yes... And I must say, I'm a bit knackered... We're on a tiny, deserted island. After the world was torn apart, I awoke to find us here.
Celes: After the world was torn apart...? So, that wasn't just a dream... What about everyone else? ...Where's Locke?
Cid: I don't know. For all I know, this island could be the only part of the world that's still above water. Ever since that day, the world's been sliding deeper and deeper into ruin. Plants wither, and animals waste away. The other people who were here with us all gave up hope... One after the next, they flung themselves from the northern cliffs in despair...

In the SNES translation, which had to tiptoe around direct mentions of suicide thanks to Nintendo's censorship policies, Cid says that leaping off the cliff "Perked 'em right up!"

I think the bitterly ironic line works better, honestly.


Cid: Celes... Try not to take it so hard. We can still live our lives together in peace! You're the closest thing to family I have left in this world...

That'd be true even if you were complete strangers, though.


Celes: Or should I say... Granddad? Is it all right if I call you that?
Cid: Granddad, eh? Heh-heh... You're going to make an old man blush! All of a sudden I have a granddaughter! *hack*... *cough*...
Celes: Hee-hee! Granddad...
Cid: Ha-ha-ha... *hack*! *cough*!
Celes: You must be hungry, Granddad...
Cid: I... actually haven't had anything to eat since I fell ill three days ago.
Celes: What would you like?
Cid: Well, unless I ask for fish, I won't get anything! That's all there is here.
Celes: I'll go catch some.

[R^2]

Celes puts Cid to bed to get some rest...


...and heads out to explore the island a bit. Oh no! Monsters!


...monsters that waste away and die without Celes lifting a finger. The world really has gone to hell.

(Monsters inflicted with automatic Sap status is actually a bug -- it's supposed to be Regen, but it's coded wrong. Apparently the devs liked the idea of monsters who waste away in their own misery, because the coding error has lasted across generations. I like to think whoever realized Angel Whispers and similar monsters weren't working right snuck into auto-Sap onto the monsters on this island to illustrate how everything's dead and dying and there's nothing anyone can do about it.)


Fish have started showing up near the beach near Cid's shack. Celes has to wade into the shallow water, wait for one to swim by, and snatch it up.








After each meal -- you can feed him multiple fish at a time -- Cid will give a line indicating his general well-being. There are four different kinds of fish, each moving at different speeds in the water. The fastest fish will help him recover, and any other will kill him.


Each time you enter the shack, Cid can be just spotted walking from the stove and getting into bed. Hey! You're supposed to be resting!

[R^2]

This actually took a lot longer than the screenshots indicate, because it takes several fish to get Cid to improve from one quote to the next... and sometimes, no delicious fish will spawn at all, and you have to go talk to Cid emptyhanded to get more fish to spawn. Talking to Cid also reduces his health slightly, as you've basically shrugged and told him he can go hungry for the day.


Cid: Celes... I finally finished the little project I've been working on at night. Go on downstairs and take a look!


Turns out the shack has a downstairs, and inside is a raft.


Cid: Celes... You have to leave this place. I'm sure your friends are still alive somewhere, waiting for you!
Celes: ...I know they are. I'll go. But I'll be back! And I'll bring them all back to see you!
Cid: You bring that Locke fellow, too, now, you hear?










Celes takes the raft, waves goodbye, and sets sail for... hey! There is another landmass in the world! This would be a short, depressing game if it turned out the entire world was flooded and the place you came from was the only landmark around. Besides, they did that twist in Final Fantasy 3.

Anyway, that's what happens when you save Cid. "Hey, I'm better! You should go away." "Yeah, bye."

[R^2]

So let's see what happens when you either can't find any good fish for too long, or talk to Cid too many times until he wastes away, or for expediency's sake shove as many nasty fish down his gullet as you can fit.


Hey, this time he stayed in bed! He must really be ill.







Music: Celes's Theme










They're hard to make out in the screenshot, but tiny sparkles come out of Celes's face as she winces.

[R^2]

[R^2]