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[R^2]

Now that I've got everyone recruited, I stop off near Maranda for a detour. The desert south of here has two monsters living in it.


The more common is the Slagworm, who will absolutely murder you dead with their Sandstorm counterattacks and powerful physical hits.


They're vulnerable to Death, though. This nets the party a nice 1881 experience each, and 5 magic AP. I gain a whole bunch of levels on these guys.


The other enemy is the rarer Cactuar, which uses 1000 Needles almost exclusively. These guys are tricky: their Evade and Magic Evade are crazy high, and their Defense good enough that most hits only do 1 damage. They only have three HP, though, so the game's ubiquitous "always hits" and "pierces defense" attacks work just fine. The reward for using a single Blitz, Shuriken, Bushido technique, or Drill on them is 10 magic AP and 10,000 gil.

By the time I'm done grinding, some party members have experience levels in the mid-forties and almost everyone knows almost all the spells available for this point in the game -- all the World of Balance espers' spells, plus those from Quetzalli, Fenrir, Lakshmi, and Phoenix.


Walking back to Maranda after a desert sojourn, I get into a fight with a monster that drops a Reed Cloak. Reed Cloaks are pretty terrible most of the time, but they work quite well if the wearer is inflicted with the Imp status.

[R^2]

For some reason, Shadow doesn't walk into bed at the inn like normal people. He splits from the party and slides backwards.


There's no music for this nightmare cutscene that happens under odd and mysterious circumstances. The only sound is the noise a Gravity spell makes, over and over -- and on the GBA soundboard, it's positively eardrum-destroying.

[R^2]

After more fighting and staggering back to Maranda to rest, there's another nightmare at the inn:




















Aha, so it's Shadow having these nightmares! Since he doesn't talk about himself much -- or indeed, ever -- it's the only way to get some characterization for the guy. It also sort of explains why he reluctantly slides into bed, rather than just lying down like a normal person.

[R^2]

Anyhow, places to be.


I fight my way back through the mines, to the snowfield where the Returners fought off the Imperial raiding party.


Doing so teaches Mog his last dance.


There's also a dragon back here.


...a dragon I don't get a single decent shot of. Here's him initiating an attack, making him flash into silhouette.


Here's his one decent attack, Absolute 0, which does a lot of ice damage.


Here's him dying. Oh well. The ice dragon is blue, and otherwise not noteworthy in the slightest.

[R^2]

Beyond the ice field, of course...


Is where Valigarmanda sleeps.


You get to fight to break him out of his icy prison. This is particularly easy if you picked up Phoenix first and practiced to get Firaga, because surprise! The icy creature is weak to fire.


Everyone in this party knows Firaga, and everyone but Locke has a habit of switching back to Zona Seeker when they level up for that +2 Magic bonus.


Valigarmanda: I suppose that is of little consequence. But what of this devestation that fills the air? Could the War of the Magi have lasted a thousand years? That foolish, unending war... Hmm...? You would seek to put an end to it...? Then I shall put my trust in you...




Valigarmanda (with roots in "varied" and "salamander", although you may call him either Charmander or Amandad if you like) is a simple esper with simple tastes: he teaches Firaga, Thundaga, and Blizzaga at x1. Summoning him hits all enemies with a fire-, thunder-, and ice-elemental attack. Like Zona Seeker, he gives +2 Magic on level up.


The battle with him collapses part of the cliff, too.

[R^2]

Inside the cliff face is a small-ish cavern. It's not a large dungeon, but it's full of turnbacks and trap doors, so it feels longer than it really is.


Oh, and don't flip switches unless you want to trigger a cave-in.








Midgardsormr teaches Quake, Gravija, and Tornado -- high-powered and dangerous black magic. Summoning it deals earth-elemental damage to all enemies. Its level-up bonus is HP+30%.


Oh, and swiping it pisses off the yeti that lives in the caves.

[R^2]

The Yeti is barely a speedbump compared to most other World of Ruin boss fights. He likes to use regular attacks and Tackle, then mix in Snowstorm, Snowball, or Avalanche to make sure you haven't turned invisible.


After around a third of his HP is gone, the Yeti snarfs a Green Cherry. For most characters, that just removes Imp status. For the Yeti, it gives him Protect, Shell, and Haste. It'd give him Regen, but he's immune to that because of a bug.


But again: not a hard battle.




Surprise! It's a semi-hidden character! Umaro is a Berserker... sort of. He's not controllable in battle and attacks on his own. He's not equippable, but carries a good weapon in the Bone Club in one hand and wears some of the best armor in the game, the much-coveted Snow Scarf, on his body. He can't equip espers or use magic, but you can give him relics to customize him a teensy bit. He's a prime candidate for the Gauntlet (since it increases attack power for characters holding a weapon in one hand and nothing in the other) and can put on that Berserker Ring I found not too long ago to start flinging allies at enemies for extra damage.


According to the dev team, Mog once fed Umaro when Umaro had collapsed in the snow from exhaustion. Now the big guy owes the little guy.




That's the end of the cave, but I missed something.


Tonberries! These guys are what you'd expect, walking slowly towards the party in order to Knife them. They use mostly physical hits as they walk around, but counter all magic with Holy. And that's problematic.


But if you Vanish the party and refrain from using magic, you can chip away at the Tonberries without them being able to hit or counter.


Invisibility even makes everyone immune to their dreaded cleavers, so they just warp back to the left side of the screen and start over.


They don't drop anything or give anything useful for being in a chest, but I think I can run into these guys on the Veldt now, and it's possible to steal female-only element-absorbing Minerva Bustiers from them.

[R^2]

Then there's the triangle island, where the Intangirs lived in the World of Balance.


Now it's inhabited by Zone Eaters.


The "Zone" in this case is the party, who are devoured one by one.


om nom nom


To be swallowed alive is... not a game over! It's a secret dungeon!


One full of monsters!


...and dudes who push you off bridges!


...and treasure!


...and collapsing ceilings that were a lot less of a problem on the tighter controls of the SNES!

[R^2]

...and... wait, who's that?




Oh! And an Easter Egg referencing the previous game! A reference nobody got back in 1994, because we'd never played Final Fantasy 5 back then. This of course led to all sorts of rumors about who this mysterious "Gogo" character could be under all those hoods and robes, from Gestahl gone incognito to Darill or Leo back from the grave.


Gogo: I have been idle for too many years... Perhaps I ought to mimic you. Tell me, what are you doing here?


Gogo: Then I guess that means that I shall save the world as well. Lead on! I shall copy your every move.

Gogo is a Mimic... sort of. He lacks a Fight command, and instead has... well, Mimic. It copies the last action of whichever party member went before him. But wait, there's more! Going into Gogo's status screen lets you equip him with other skills: magic,  item, or the otherwise-unique abilities of each party member. Need someone else who can use Tools? Blitz? Throw? Lore? Sketch? Really, Sketch? What is wrong with you?

Gogo's stats are fair-to-middlin', and he can't equip espers, so he's never as good at anything as the original party members are.

In the very early versions of the game -- the brainstorming phases where Celes was a spy for real and Terra was a male and half of an adventuring duo -- the idea for recruiting Gogo was that the player would find him across towns and villages, pretending to be one of the party members. You'd recruit Gogo by bringing him the character he was mimicking at the time. That was eventually dropped and Gogo got stuck hanging out in a worm's intestines.

But...






I rather have a feeling relics of Gogo's recruitment explain a few odd things that have cropped up before.

[Roger]

You need the Sketch Command if you want to give Gogo Control though.  Which is marginally better.

[R^2]

Clean-up questing continues. Back to Solitary Island! Again!


In this case, to track down some desert creatures. The Land Rays here use Mighty Guard when sketched.


...which is good for Strago. And good for Relm, because this is the only reason Sketch is worth using. In case you missed it before, the Peepers can use White Wind too.




Crawlers use Traveler, which deals damage equal to the number of steps I've taken in the game divided by 32 -- or just shy of 2000 damage. It'd be one of the easiest (if most tedious) spells in the game to grind up to the damage cap, except the MP cost is based on game time. So the more time you spend walking back and forth, the more expensive it gets.


Crawlers also use Dischord of their own volition, allowing Strago to half an enemy's level.


Sprinters, which can be encountered semirarely in areas that are infested with Crawlers, teach Aero. There's only one Aero spell in this game, rather than the standard improvement with Aera and Aeroga.


The Malboros in Darill's Tomb, not surprisingly, teach Bad Breath.




Lookin' pretty good, Strago. And despite her being my highest-leveled character -- she had the most catching up to do with her spell list while I was fighting Slagworms and Cactuars -- it's about time to kick Relm to the curb.

[R^2]

As has been hinted heavily, Deathgaze roams the skies above the World of Ruin. Each time you get in the airship, he picks an area of the world map to hang out in. And if you happen to fly by... rargh!


Deathgaze opens every fight with Level 5 Death, but it misses everyone but Relm -- and she's wearing the Memento Ring to null it. After that, it's just a matter of staying healed from Blizzaga or Aero, reviving anyone hit by Doom or Death, and blasting him with Firaga.

Dude hates Firaga.


Whoa, crazy.

Usually, Deathgaze flees after taking some damage and killing a few dudes. Deathgaze never recovers HP, even once he flees, so the player is intended to whittle him down over several encounters. According to his battle script, he's supposed to flee on his third turn, no matter what. But he didn't! He hung around and lashed at the party with his usual death-and-ice magic, and we blasted him with fire until he died of it. At 55,555 HP, that's just plain not something you're supposed to do the first time you meet him.




Deathgaze horks up Bahamut upon his death. Bahamut teaches Flare at x2, uses Mega Flare when summoned, and gives intrepid level-gainers HP+30%.

[R^2]

If you choose to stop, there's not many places to go -- much of Figaro is outside, and you can't go outside on account of being underground.


But you can go back through the prison cell passage, which leads to a new cavern complex under the strait separating Figaro from Kohlingen.


Whoa, Enuo? He's fallen a long way from the necromancer that threatened the entire world in the backstory of Final Fantasy 5. Now he's some sorta squidgy intestine creature crawling around a semisecret cave harassing passersby in random encounters.


Enuo are pretty good about teaching any blue mages present how to cast Tsunami, though.


And then there's this asshole. The Master Tonberry generally behaves like the Tonberries encountered previously, except he counters everything with Traveler and uses Barrier Change to make himself extra-hard to kill.


When your enemy uses near-fatal set-damage counters, the best thing to do is have a moogle jump on his head over and over.


The reward is a strong holy-elemental dagger.

[R^2]

The cavern isn't the main attraction, though. There's a sunken city too.


Sepia-tone means flashback, as usual.

[TA]

Back on my ol' SNES copy, if you did the Vanish/X-Zone trick on Doomgaze, as he was known then, you didn't get Bahamut.  It just skipped that sequence.

Vanish/Doom worked fine though.

[R^2]

whoooosh ka-shing




Odin dispatches his foes by cleaving them in twain.


His next opponent is... not a ghost, actually. That's a hooded wizard robe with a living wizard inside it.






One who scoffs at Zantetsuken. Must be immune to instant-death attacks.




A subtle nod to Final Fantasy 5, where Break Sword is one of the quicker was to defeat Odin and earn his summon.


Locke's grandma sure knew her fairy tales. (Whoever is first in the party is relating this story to the others. It makes plenty of sense if it's, say, Terra or Strago. Rather less if it's Shadow, or Gau... or Umaro.)

[R^2]

The Samurai Soul can be a tough opponent.


But if you confuse him...




He'll kill himself with Assassin Blade.


The reward is the Master's Scroll. The person equipping this scroll can !Rapid Fire instead of fighting, hitting four times for half damage each time. There are almost as many bugs with Master's Scroll and weapons as there are with Mug and weapons, so they go great together! Mugging with the Master's Scroll means Locke gets to stabby-stealy four times a turn.

[R^2]

Odin magicite uses Zantetsuken on summon. I know, crazy huh? It teaches Meteor at x1, and gives Speed +1 on level-up. Speed+1? Wow! An esper finally gives a Speed bonus!




Diary: I have fallen in love with Odin. It is a forbidden love, I know... But the flames of passion obey not rule or reason... Every time I think of that noble man, my heart flutters, and fans the flames yet more! And who could rightly fault it? When the fighting ends, I shall tell him... I must...

If Terra is present here, she'll ponder the possible relationship between a human and an esper, but not in any groundbreaking sort of way. Just "Huh. Turns out I'm not as unusual as I thought."


Should you return to the surface, and explore Figaro, one of the scholars has something new to say.






So stand in front of the throne on the right...


...take five steps, and hit the button usually reserved for searching or interacting with things. There's a thud from the next room over!

[R^2]

Was that stairway always here? (No, it just appeared from the take-five-steps switch.)


There's a dragon in the basement!


It's blue!


In addition to the water-elemental attacks you'd expect, including Tsunami and Aqua Breath, the Blue Dragon will cast Slow on itself, then follow with Rippler. Rippler trades status buffs and ailments between the caster and the target -- so the Haste possessed by a party member will be given to the Blue Dragon, and the Slow Blue Dragon cast on itself is transferred to the party member.

...except Strago blocked Rippler. Haha, I screwed up your strategy, Blue Dragon! Suck Force Shield!


Blue Dragon really isn't difficult.


Rippler is kind of terrible as spells go. Most statuses prevent Lore from being used -- Berserk, Silence, Confusion, and so on -- so it's not as useful as you'd think. Furthermore, a bug in this version of the game prevents it from working on anything that's immune to Imp... so come to think of it, it may have been Strago's Ribbon that blocked Rippler, rather than his shield. Well, whatever.

In any case, it's better than the Rippler bug from the SNES version. In both games, many things are treated as a change in status that's hard to set or dispel. Cyan's second Bushido technique? The counterattack is set by a status flag. Piloting Magitek armor? There's a status flag that changes the sprite to include the armor, and change the Fight command to Magitek. Shadow's habit of blocking attacks with Interceptor? Oh yes, that's a status too.

In the SNES version, Rippler could swap around every status, even those hidden flags. An enemy casting Rippler on Shadow would steal Interceptor from him. And since nothing sets the Interceptor flag -- it's just innately on Shadow -- defeating the enemy means you never get Interceptor back. He stops protecting Shadow forever.

If an enemy Ripplers Shadow and steals Interceptor, then Strago Ripplers that enemy, the Interceptor status is instead transferred to Strago, and the dog protects the old blue mage for the rest of the game instead. Weird.


Anyway, that's one more dead dragon.

[Mothra]

Probably my favorite sidequest in the game. Was not even remotely expecting it, either, the first time I played it.