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xyzzysqrlLAST TIME: The Hunt system pooped on me for hours.
Oh well. Sometimes, that is just the way things go when you're playing a game like this. These things are obviously meant to be done later, after my party has obtained MORE POWER. And you know what? What could be more powerful than being ROYALTY? ... A lot of things. Shut up. I am doing a segue.
There are apparently two pieces of proof that react to Ashe's royal bloodline. One is the Dusk Stone, which as far as I can tell is still off on the flagship of the Empire. Let's not break in and try to get that back. The second is the Dawn Stone, which is buried in the Tomb of Raithwall. Thus: We were going to go to the Tomb of Raithwall and get Official Proof that Ashe is a real honest-to-goodness princess. Let's do that.
First I take a minute to crack open the party and turn them all back on and give them a sense of danger again. Y'know, just... reprogramming them to my whims and desires. Man, I like the gambit system. This isn't creepy.
It also comes to me that... I don't actually know how to -replace- those Ethers that Penelo chugged down. In Final Fantasy the traditional way of restoring magic is to gulp ether by the bucketful. (Kids! Do not attempt!) I haven't seen these sold in stores yet, and I'm down to... uh, two. That may cause issues!
Oh well. I can only imagine how poor Vossler feels about all this crap, as I drag him and his princess back and forth across the desert and through the sewers and stuff. At least we're finally getting back on track here.
(Cue two hour montage of me lost in the desert.)
Anyway, several hours later we roll up to the tomb, freshly outfitted in new-bought armor and ready to CLAIM SOME BIRTHRIGHT YEAAAAH. As I walk in the door, the game politely informs me "You will now have the option of saving your game". ... There goes all my confidence. If it's TELLING ME TO SAVE... eek. This is gonna kill me. Is it too late to cancel all this and just, like... write a paragraph about Space Channel 5?
The Tomb of Raithwall is a place with lots of spikey protrusions in a deep valley lined with pillars. It also features GARUDA, a big-ass bird that threatens to eat my party. Luckily, I read the item descriptions of things. Those berries I picked up back in the desert a couple updates ago are toxic to Garuda. Garudii. Garudas? ... BIRD. THEY HURT BIRD. THROW BERRIES AT BIRD.
This cuts his HP to a managable level. Team Ranged fill him with spear-pokes and arrows. He goes down easy.
DA DA DA DA DA DA DADADA okay on we go.
Ashe pauses to narrate. Long ago, King Raithwall was known as the Dynast-King, for managing to unite a really remarkable amount of terrain and yet still eschew war in favor of peace. The gods favored him, and he left behind three relics: The Dawn Shard, the Dusk Shard, and the Midnight Shard. The Midnight shard is in Nabradia, the Dusk shard Dalmasca (or was until the empire took it) and the third is here. Of course, you have to be of his bloodline to enter or all manner of foul traps and deadly beasts await.
Balthier rolls his eyes. "Oh, here I thought this was going to be hard." We promptly get on with it, touching a weird teleporter stone and poofing inside the tomb. "What was THAT?" Vaan wants to know. "Teleporter." Balthier offhandedly explains. "You get them in all but the worst ancient tomb." Just to reenforce that Balthier has been everywhere and done everything BEFORE YOU.
Now we're in the "Hall of the Destroyer", which I don't like the sound of. I take a minute to shell/protect/reflect the party, and that pays off, because a DEMON WALL approaches as soon as the party steps onto a nearby bridge. This is exactly what it sounds like: A giant wall that hates you and wants you to die. Demon Walls are a reoccuring boss in the Final Fantasy series. You beat it before it squeezes the party against the opposite wall, or you die.
Me? I beat it, but just barely. Backs-to-the-wall time indeed.
So, we sigh in relief and open the door to the next room, where... there is a second bridge with a second Demon Wall coming right at us top-speed.
Who built this fucking dungeon, Gary Gygax?!
Fortunately, "top speed" for a demon wall is like half a mile per hour, so we sprint out, meet it at the end of its path, and kick it senseless. Successful defense. ANY MORE? Demon CEILING? No? Okay. ... wait a minute. Gary Gygax. Gary Gygax. In an actual Gygaxian dungeon... hmm.
I turn around and head back towards that first demon wall. Sure enough, in the crevice where it starts is a switch, which raises some bridges and lets me access MORE TREASURE hidden here in the tomb. Ahahaha. I KNOW D&D, YOU BASTARDS.
The pathway that opens up allows me to access a "Scathe Mote", or a mote (item) that casts "Scathe" (THERMONUCLEAR HADOKEN). Yeah, I'll be saving that for a rainy day, since because I don't have a Black Mage I can never cast this spell normally. Score.
Further in, Vossler marvels at the beauty of the tomb, and glares at Fran and Balthier. They're just in this for PROFIT, EWW. Ashe is calm. She knows that if they assure Balthier and Fran of profit to come, they will stay loyal and trustworthy. Vossler doesn't SHARE that trust, but Ashe cuts him off before he can say much more. She can hear it! The cosmos! ...wait, no, the Dawn Shard! Yeah, that. It's calling her.
Is hearing voices a prerequisite for being royal, I wonder, or just one of the many side benefits?
The tomb is naturally crawling with bats and undead and little fat dudes who are shaped like faces (???), like any given dungeon crawl. We systematically go from room to room slaying things and looting boxes, as is the wont of the adventurer. While exploring, I find a button and push it, which A: Lowers an altar slightly in another room, and B: Causes three zombie mages to jump out and start spamming Dark Motes on the party. Now, this is actually one of the most dangerous encounters so far, because Motes, being items, have NO CAST TIME. So they can just throw them out as fast as they possibly can. An enemy spellcaster armed with a rack of these is far more dangerous than one that... y'know, casts spells at me.
Again, who designed this place? They clearly knew the mechanics and were ready to GET SERIOUS about murdering the entire party in as efficient a manner as possible. As if to prove the point, the tomb only gets deadlier the further in I go. (You would think you'd want to put as much deadly stuff at the start as possible...) Liches soon replace the rank-and-file undead, and when I flip the -second- switch deeper in to lower the altar all the way, a trio of them jump me.
I was prepared for this one, but still! Liches! Three of 'em! Geez, people. ... Okay, the most dangerous thing about them is that they screw with the HUD in a really weird and distorting way. But THREE LICHES.
Three! Ah-ha-ha.
...okay then.
The party comes across a room swimmingly dense with fog -- Or, as Fran corrects, "Mist". Penelo is shocked that they can see the Mist with their eyes. It's basically condensed magic vapor, and having this much of it in one place is worrying. Fran agrees, but observes that it also allows for the workings of powerful magic. Penelo snarks that she certainly can't count on Vaan to keep track of stuff like that.
In the base game, this conversation is amusing, but with Penelo one of my only magic-using characters, it just comes off as her getting some schooling in useful knowledge. Huh. CONTEXT! It changes everything. Down in the middle of this morass of Mist is an unmistakable Boss Fight Arena. The party protect/shells up and prepares to face whatever the tomb can throw at us.
In this corner, hailing from various corners of the world, OUR PARTY! And in this corner, weighing in at roughly 1,200 pounds, currently ON FIRE and possibly MADE of fire, wielding a sword larger than ALL THREE of the party STACKED TOGETHER, hailing from oh god who the HELL knows... BELIAS THE GIGAS!
He doesn't last very long. Maybe the Hunting did some good after all, it taught me to make preperations and not to take a big foe lightly. The dude casts something called "Firaja" which coats the entire party in oil, but I have handkerchiefs for everyone and we wipe it all off before he can set it ablaze. His attacks don't do much through Shell and Protect, and when he breaks them out on himself, we Slow him and keep slashing away. Fran takes MVP for racking up a five hit combo that finishes him off completely.
In his youth, King Rathwall bound an Esper to his following. Now, we have defeated and bound that esper. We can become summoners now, which is a pretty cool thought. Fran gives a little background on the Espers: They are doomed to walk the Mist forever, having challenged the Gods and lost.
"So this was guarding the Dynast-King's treasure?" Balthier wonders.
"This IS the Dynast-King's treasure. In this Esper we now command lies a power whose wealth is beyond measure." Ashe replies.
"Call me old-fashioned," sniffs Balthier, "But I was hoping for a treasure whose wealth we COULD measure."
In the next chamber is the Dawn Stone, which Vossler seems strangely upset or maybe unnerved by. Ashe sees a vision of Lord Rasler, waiting for her to take up the Dawn Stone, and swears she will have VENGEANCE in his name. When she touches it, it lights up in respect of her birthright, and she and the party leave. With THAT in hand, we ought to be ready to move and shake, politically speaking.
AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION: Who should have the power to summon Belias the Gigas, Living Embodiment of Setting Things On Fricking Fire?
Oh well. Sometimes, that is just the way things go when you're playing a game like this. These things are obviously meant to be done later, after my party has obtained MORE POWER. And you know what? What could be more powerful than being ROYALTY? ... A lot of things. Shut up. I am doing a segue.
There are apparently two pieces of proof that react to Ashe's royal bloodline. One is the Dusk Stone, which as far as I can tell is still off on the flagship of the Empire. Let's not break in and try to get that back. The second is the Dawn Stone, which is buried in the Tomb of Raithwall. Thus: We were going to go to the Tomb of Raithwall and get Official Proof that Ashe is a real honest-to-goodness princess. Let's do that.
First I take a minute to crack open the party and turn them all back on and give them a sense of danger again. Y'know, just... reprogramming them to my whims and desires. Man, I like the gambit system. This isn't creepy.
It also comes to me that... I don't actually know how to -replace- those Ethers that Penelo chugged down. In Final Fantasy the traditional way of restoring magic is to gulp ether by the bucketful. (Kids! Do not attempt!) I haven't seen these sold in stores yet, and I'm down to... uh, two. That may cause issues!
Oh well. I can only imagine how poor Vossler feels about all this crap, as I drag him and his princess back and forth across the desert and through the sewers and stuff. At least we're finally getting back on track here.
(Cue two hour montage of me lost in the desert.)
Anyway, several hours later we roll up to the tomb, freshly outfitted in new-bought armor and ready to CLAIM SOME BIRTHRIGHT YEAAAAH. As I walk in the door, the game politely informs me "You will now have the option of saving your game". ... There goes all my confidence. If it's TELLING ME TO SAVE... eek. This is gonna kill me. Is it too late to cancel all this and just, like... write a paragraph about Space Channel 5?
The Tomb of Raithwall is a place with lots of spikey protrusions in a deep valley lined with pillars. It also features GARUDA, a big-ass bird that threatens to eat my party. Luckily, I read the item descriptions of things. Those berries I picked up back in the desert a couple updates ago are toxic to Garuda. Garudii. Garudas? ... BIRD. THEY HURT BIRD. THROW BERRIES AT BIRD.
This cuts his HP to a managable level. Team Ranged fill him with spear-pokes and arrows. He goes down easy.
DA DA DA DA DA DA DADADA okay on we go.
Ashe pauses to narrate. Long ago, King Raithwall was known as the Dynast-King, for managing to unite a really remarkable amount of terrain and yet still eschew war in favor of peace. The gods favored him, and he left behind three relics: The Dawn Shard, the Dusk Shard, and the Midnight Shard. The Midnight shard is in Nabradia, the Dusk shard Dalmasca (or was until the empire took it) and the third is here. Of course, you have to be of his bloodline to enter or all manner of foul traps and deadly beasts await.
Balthier rolls his eyes. "Oh, here I thought this was going to be hard." We promptly get on with it, touching a weird teleporter stone and poofing inside the tomb. "What was THAT?" Vaan wants to know. "Teleporter." Balthier offhandedly explains. "You get them in all but the worst ancient tomb." Just to reenforce that Balthier has been everywhere and done everything BEFORE YOU.
Now we're in the "Hall of the Destroyer", which I don't like the sound of. I take a minute to shell/protect/reflect the party, and that pays off, because a DEMON WALL approaches as soon as the party steps onto a nearby bridge. This is exactly what it sounds like: A giant wall that hates you and wants you to die. Demon Walls are a reoccuring boss in the Final Fantasy series. You beat it before it squeezes the party against the opposite wall, or you die.
Me? I beat it, but just barely. Backs-to-the-wall time indeed.
So, we sigh in relief and open the door to the next room, where... there is a second bridge with a second Demon Wall coming right at us top-speed.
Who built this fucking dungeon, Gary Gygax?!
Fortunately, "top speed" for a demon wall is like half a mile per hour, so we sprint out, meet it at the end of its path, and kick it senseless. Successful defense. ANY MORE? Demon CEILING? No? Okay. ... wait a minute. Gary Gygax. Gary Gygax. In an actual Gygaxian dungeon... hmm.
I turn around and head back towards that first demon wall. Sure enough, in the crevice where it starts is a switch, which raises some bridges and lets me access MORE TREASURE hidden here in the tomb. Ahahaha. I KNOW D&D, YOU BASTARDS.
The pathway that opens up allows me to access a "Scathe Mote", or a mote (item) that casts "Scathe" (THERMONUCLEAR HADOKEN). Yeah, I'll be saving that for a rainy day, since because I don't have a Black Mage I can never cast this spell normally. Score.
Further in, Vossler marvels at the beauty of the tomb, and glares at Fran and Balthier. They're just in this for PROFIT, EWW. Ashe is calm. She knows that if they assure Balthier and Fran of profit to come, they will stay loyal and trustworthy. Vossler doesn't SHARE that trust, but Ashe cuts him off before he can say much more. She can hear it! The cosmos! ...wait, no, the Dawn Shard! Yeah, that. It's calling her.
Is hearing voices a prerequisite for being royal, I wonder, or just one of the many side benefits?
The tomb is naturally crawling with bats and undead and little fat dudes who are shaped like faces (???), like any given dungeon crawl. We systematically go from room to room slaying things and looting boxes, as is the wont of the adventurer. While exploring, I find a button and push it, which A: Lowers an altar slightly in another room, and B: Causes three zombie mages to jump out and start spamming Dark Motes on the party. Now, this is actually one of the most dangerous encounters so far, because Motes, being items, have NO CAST TIME. So they can just throw them out as fast as they possibly can. An enemy spellcaster armed with a rack of these is far more dangerous than one that... y'know, casts spells at me.
Again, who designed this place? They clearly knew the mechanics and were ready to GET SERIOUS about murdering the entire party in as efficient a manner as possible. As if to prove the point, the tomb only gets deadlier the further in I go. (You would think you'd want to put as much deadly stuff at the start as possible...) Liches soon replace the rank-and-file undead, and when I flip the -second- switch deeper in to lower the altar all the way, a trio of them jump me.
I was prepared for this one, but still! Liches! Three of 'em! Geez, people. ... Okay, the most dangerous thing about them is that they screw with the HUD in a really weird and distorting way. But THREE LICHES.
Three! Ah-ha-ha.
...okay then.
The party comes across a room swimmingly dense with fog -- Or, as Fran corrects, "Mist". Penelo is shocked that they can see the Mist with their eyes. It's basically condensed magic vapor, and having this much of it in one place is worrying. Fran agrees, but observes that it also allows for the workings of powerful magic. Penelo snarks that she certainly can't count on Vaan to keep track of stuff like that.
In the base game, this conversation is amusing, but with Penelo one of my only magic-using characters, it just comes off as her getting some schooling in useful knowledge. Huh. CONTEXT! It changes everything. Down in the middle of this morass of Mist is an unmistakable Boss Fight Arena. The party protect/shells up and prepares to face whatever the tomb can throw at us.
In this corner, hailing from various corners of the world, OUR PARTY! And in this corner, weighing in at roughly 1,200 pounds, currently ON FIRE and possibly MADE of fire, wielding a sword larger than ALL THREE of the party STACKED TOGETHER, hailing from oh god who the HELL knows... BELIAS THE GIGAS!
He doesn't last very long. Maybe the Hunting did some good after all, it taught me to make preperations and not to take a big foe lightly. The dude casts something called "Firaja" which coats the entire party in oil, but I have handkerchiefs for everyone and we wipe it all off before he can set it ablaze. His attacks don't do much through Shell and Protect, and when he breaks them out on himself, we Slow him and keep slashing away. Fran takes MVP for racking up a five hit combo that finishes him off completely.
In his youth, King Rathwall bound an Esper to his following. Now, we have defeated and bound that esper. We can become summoners now, which is a pretty cool thought. Fran gives a little background on the Espers: They are doomed to walk the Mist forever, having challenged the Gods and lost.
"So this was guarding the Dynast-King's treasure?" Balthier wonders.
"This IS the Dynast-King's treasure. In this Esper we now command lies a power whose wealth is beyond measure." Ashe replies.
"Call me old-fashioned," sniffs Balthier, "But I was hoping for a treasure whose wealth we COULD measure."
In the next chamber is the Dawn Stone, which Vossler seems strangely upset or maybe unnerved by. Ashe sees a vision of Lord Rasler, waiting for her to take up the Dawn Stone, and swears she will have VENGEANCE in his name. When she touches it, it lights up in respect of her birthright, and she and the party leave. With THAT in hand, we ought to be ready to move and shake, politically speaking.
AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION: Who should have the power to summon Belias the Gigas, Living Embodiment of Setting Things On Fricking Fire?
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no subject
Date: 2012-12-03 12:35 am (UTC)I say give it to Balthier just to piss him off, so that Ashe can keep saying to him, "You got your damned treasure," and he can be all British and explain to her the technicalities. Also, his element in the game is water, and you want to keep him punk as HELL and rebelling against all authority. "Anarchy in the Dalmasca, bitches!"
no subject
Date: 2012-12-03 12:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-03 01:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-03 01:55 pm (UTC)P.P.S. You're not trying to get the Zodiac Spear, right? Do you know about that thing? It's insane. You can only get it by not opening certain chests/hidden items through the game, and there's nothing to tell you that. Open any of them and you can't get the spear. I have no idea how people figured it out. Probably hacking.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-03 02:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-03 02:46 pm (UTC)In either case, I didn't realize this was an actual 'version', I thought it was either an externally imposed ruleset you were following, or one you can select in the game that I had over looked. Where did it come from?
no subject
Date: 2012-12-03 03:22 pm (UTC)Perhaps then some of the advice you give will have some resemblance to what I'm actually doing.
The spear exists. The chest requirements don't.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 06:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-04 07:46 pm (UTC)