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xyzzysqrlLast time: EXPLOSIONS! BETRAYAL! EXISTENTIAL ANGST! You paid for the whole text BUT YOU ONLY NEEDED THE SUMMARY!
Also Vaan got no goddamn respect. (If you're a Final Fantasy fan, you may enjoy this video of crossover fighter Dissidia 012, in which Vaan gets no respect from just about the entire roster.)
Remember how I said a while back I wasn't going to take on any more Hunt marks? I lied. It should be okay, though! The ones that beat me up before (Marilith, The White Mousse) were ranked as "Level V" marks. I wasn't sure what that meant at first, but the ones currently on offer are ranked as "Level II" and one "Level III". Surely those will be easier, right?
Anyway, all of those hunts are off in the same direction that the party needs to actually travel. So we'll not be going too far out of our way. That direction is SOUTH. We are headed off across the Giza Plains, so ... off we go! Giza Plains was formerly a desert area, lots of blowing sand and such. Now, thanks to a weather front blown in by the fleet of exploding airships several miles away, it's experiencing its "Wet" season, lush and green and flooded.
You can, later in the game, get it to toggle between Wet and Dry modes by walking away for ten minutes. I would call this kind of weather pattern insane and unrealistic, but I used to live in Maryland and now live in Massachusetts, so I am perfectly happy to accept that sometimes places have really fucking deranged weather systems that are horrible and make you long for a climate-controlled plexiglass bubble and move along.
Another side effect of the weird weather is that the village formerly on the plains has cleared out and left for dryer climate. (You can find stragglers in Rabanastre if you go talking to townsfolk, another sign of the living, detailed world of this game.) However, one fellow stayed behind. Something called a "Croakadile" ate his ring, and he moans and pleads single-mindedly for me to get it back. This shouldn't be much of a problem.
I also find a "Withered Tree", which gives an interaction prompt. When I bloop on it, Fran punches it into the river, where it floats off to the southwest. I feel like there's a sidequest attached to this or something, and I don't know if I'll end up doing it. I'm not trying to 100% the game here, after all. Still, it can't hurt to have a look along the river for more trees while I'm hunting Croakadile.
Let's touch on that a little more firmly while the party is running around going "DERP DERP DERP" and hitting things with large objects. This is one of the Final Fantasy games which I've never finished but really always WANTED to. That said, I am not much of a completionist gamer. I fully intend to run to the end of the storyline, but as for all the optional sidequests, I may not do them. I'm LIKELY not to do them. If they are PUT IN FRONT OF ME and pointed out with signposts, I may STILL not do them. Then again, I might. It's just really unlikely.
(I mean, comes to that, why am I writing these blogs? I hope I'm not pissing people off by posting them EVERY SINGLE DAY. People seem to be enjoying them, I guess! I'm glad of that! But ... really, realistically, I am contributing very little to the discussion and also I am playing a six-year-old game anyone could just play themselves. I guess as usual I have more enthusiasm than common sense. Maybe I should just delete this paragraph.)
What I'm trying to say is, unless there's a major push for it AND I feel like it's actually POSSIBLE -and- I get in a particular Bright Mood, I will probably NOT 100% this game, because I would like to be done with it before the New Year. I have no idea if that's a realistic goal, but hey. We will find out.
It looks like while I've been pushing logs into the river and hitting hyenas with maces, the party has found what all that tree-pushing is about. If I push down enough trees, I can access an area not on my map. Hmm. Well, spirit of discovery and all that. We also find that one of the marks we've been hired for, a massive turtle the "Gil Snapper", is across in that area not on the map. So much for the spirit of discovery I guess. That one looks too hard for me right now, so I'll back-burner it for later.
As I walk a little further, a three-story-tall frog launches out of the river and nearly lands on the party.
I scream. I'm not ashamed.
This is Croakadile, and he is the perfect excuse to summon up Belias and give him a try. Belias does a number of things. He has a whopping stack of hitpoints. He has a pretty good rack of fire moves, and thus hits the fire-weak Croakadile for massive damage. He also drops the emulator to eight frames per second and chokes my PC half to death with his finishing move. Oops. Well, maybe I should tweak the settings down s'more anyway.
Anyway, CROAKADILE DEFEATED YAY. I am BACK IN THE MARK BUSINESS. It also gives me that dude's ring, which I trot on back to him. He thanks me, pays me, and tells me to "take the ring to my beloved", which... uh... She isn't here. It's kind of implied that she's the village elder? But I don't see her around. Maybe in the Dry season.
Down south we hit the Ozmone Plains, which are like the Giza Plains except reskinned a bit, and also it is not raining. It's pretty and lush and green with wide-open blue skies and of course the entire area is full of things that want to kill everybody. Also bunnies. The bunnies do not appear to want to kill me, BUT I'M WATCHING THEM.
I also very nearly have my first -accidental- party wipe. An enemy called the "Bull Croc" appears, and while I'm not paying attention I attack it. Dude is much, MUCH stronger than I am. Like, T-Rex-towards-game-start strong. I am however much better equipped than I was at game start. When the epic battle is done, the Bull Croc is dead, and Balthier is the only one out of the six party members left standing... although this is because he hid behind Belias and used the big guy as a meat shield. I am not ashamed. It worked.
Then another, even MORE powerful monster called "Aeros" attacks. I get the hell out of Dodge.
I... by all rights that should've caused a death-and-reload situation. I have no excuse for NOT getting a game over there. Praise the Sun!
Eventually we reach Jahara, homeland of the Garif, who are... I'm not gonna say funny-looking, but they have enormous horns and wear big masks all the time and appear to be covered in shaggy red fur. So they're both funny looking and sort of weirdly appealing to me and I kinda want to hang out with these guys for a long time. "War-Chief Supinelu" greets us at the doors, and makes an "Ah" sound when we tell him why we're there. Of course! More humans here to ask about nethicite!
Wait. What?
He also drops some ancient tribal wisdom, "Look with your eyes, listen with your ears." All this time I've had that backward! No wonder the view looks so weird out either side of my head! Thanks, War-Chief! YOU HAVE CHANGED MY WHOLE LIFE AROUND.
None of the Elders actually know anything about nethicite, though some of them comment it's not the first time they've been asked recently. The party troops on up to meet the Great Chief and ask him. Ashe pulls rank to get us an audience, and the Garif decide that they'll accept this. The Great Chief is kind of irritated. "You have USED this Nethicite?"
"Not I. I was hoping you could show me how." Ashe replies, apparently failing to read the tone of the room. It doesn't matter, though. The Chief doesn't know either. Long ago, the Gods gave his people a gift of nethicite. They had no idea how to use it then or now, and eventually the Gods took their gift back and gave it to "a human king" instead. At least the Chief is -sorry- he can't help. Besides, it's no use. This stone has already expended all its Mist. It needs to charge for ages. Ashe's descendants could use it, maybe.
(The Gods, I want to point out, are ASSHOLES in this scenario. You don't just RE-GIFT shit you gave to OTHER PEOPLE. )
Now, just who was it that was asking about the nethicite? The answer enters, stage left. Hi, Larsa!
Larsa is enthused to see the party here. He both needs an escort, and he pleads with Ashe to help him stop the war that's brewing. "Neither of our countries can afford this now!" he insists. Ashe is kind of pissed off. What does she care if there's a war? Well, what if someone used nethicite in the middle of Rabanastre? Larsa has no illusions about his brother. He KNOWS he'd nuke a city off the map to prove a point.
Ashe spends that evening trying to work out what to do. In the middle of the night, she sees a vision of Lord Rasler again, and follows it out of her hut to... where Vaan is waiting?
"You saw him too, huh?" Vaan asks, moody. "Like at the King's Tomb?"
Vaan has been trying to figure out who the person he kept seeing was. Maybe his brother? After all, he barely knew there WAS a Prince Rasler. Ashe has some sympathy, as Basch told her all about Reks. Vaan just seems... frustrated, really. HE never joined the army. HE never tried to get revenge against the empire. HE never really tried to become a sky pirate. What did he do? Run away from home, follow Ashe around the countryside aimlessly, without ever even asking why he was there.
"I'm done with it. I'm through running I'm ready to find a purpose, to find some real answers." Vaan decides, and thus takes his first step towards becoming an actual character in our story instead of a walking camera. The party decides to join Larsa, and try to prevent the war. Balthier plots out a course towards the Sacred Mountain of Bur-Omisace.
"And why are you here? What are you looking for?" Basch asks Balthier, as if trying to trip him up the way he did Vaan.
Balthier, of course, has a better answer. "I'm here to see how the story unfolds. Any self-respecting leading man would do the same."
Balthier is IMMUNE to your ONTOLOGICAL BULLSHIT.
Next Time: More mark-hunting, more travel.
Also Vaan got no goddamn respect. (If you're a Final Fantasy fan, you may enjoy this video of crossover fighter Dissidia 012, in which Vaan gets no respect from just about the entire roster.)
Remember how I said a while back I wasn't going to take on any more Hunt marks? I lied. It should be okay, though! The ones that beat me up before (Marilith, The White Mousse) were ranked as "Level V" marks. I wasn't sure what that meant at first, but the ones currently on offer are ranked as "Level II" and one "Level III". Surely those will be easier, right?
Anyway, all of those hunts are off in the same direction that the party needs to actually travel. So we'll not be going too far out of our way. That direction is SOUTH. We are headed off across the Giza Plains, so ... off we go! Giza Plains was formerly a desert area, lots of blowing sand and such. Now, thanks to a weather front blown in by the fleet of exploding airships several miles away, it's experiencing its "Wet" season, lush and green and flooded.
You can, later in the game, get it to toggle between Wet and Dry modes by walking away for ten minutes. I would call this kind of weather pattern insane and unrealistic, but I used to live in Maryland and now live in Massachusetts, so I am perfectly happy to accept that sometimes places have really fucking deranged weather systems that are horrible and make you long for a climate-controlled plexiglass bubble and move along.
Another side effect of the weird weather is that the village formerly on the plains has cleared out and left for dryer climate. (You can find stragglers in Rabanastre if you go talking to townsfolk, another sign of the living, detailed world of this game.) However, one fellow stayed behind. Something called a "Croakadile" ate his ring, and he moans and pleads single-mindedly for me to get it back. This shouldn't be much of a problem.
I also find a "Withered Tree", which gives an interaction prompt. When I bloop on it, Fran punches it into the river, where it floats off to the southwest. I feel like there's a sidequest attached to this or something, and I don't know if I'll end up doing it. I'm not trying to 100% the game here, after all. Still, it can't hurt to have a look along the river for more trees while I'm hunting Croakadile.
Let's touch on that a little more firmly while the party is running around going "DERP DERP DERP" and hitting things with large objects. This is one of the Final Fantasy games which I've never finished but really always WANTED to. That said, I am not much of a completionist gamer. I fully intend to run to the end of the storyline, but as for all the optional sidequests, I may not do them. I'm LIKELY not to do them. If they are PUT IN FRONT OF ME and pointed out with signposts, I may STILL not do them. Then again, I might. It's just really unlikely.
(I mean, comes to that, why am I writing these blogs? I hope I'm not pissing people off by posting them EVERY SINGLE DAY. People seem to be enjoying them, I guess! I'm glad of that! But ... really, realistically, I am contributing very little to the discussion and also I am playing a six-year-old game anyone could just play themselves. I guess as usual I have more enthusiasm than common sense. Maybe I should just delete this paragraph.)
What I'm trying to say is, unless there's a major push for it AND I feel like it's actually POSSIBLE -and- I get in a particular Bright Mood, I will probably NOT 100% this game, because I would like to be done with it before the New Year. I have no idea if that's a realistic goal, but hey. We will find out.
It looks like while I've been pushing logs into the river and hitting hyenas with maces, the party has found what all that tree-pushing is about. If I push down enough trees, I can access an area not on my map. Hmm. Well, spirit of discovery and all that. We also find that one of the marks we've been hired for, a massive turtle the "Gil Snapper", is across in that area not on the map. So much for the spirit of discovery I guess. That one looks too hard for me right now, so I'll back-burner it for later.
As I walk a little further, a three-story-tall frog launches out of the river and nearly lands on the party.
I scream. I'm not ashamed.
This is Croakadile, and he is the perfect excuse to summon up Belias and give him a try. Belias does a number of things. He has a whopping stack of hitpoints. He has a pretty good rack of fire moves, and thus hits the fire-weak Croakadile for massive damage. He also drops the emulator to eight frames per second and chokes my PC half to death with his finishing move. Oops. Well, maybe I should tweak the settings down s'more anyway.
Anyway, CROAKADILE DEFEATED YAY. I am BACK IN THE MARK BUSINESS. It also gives me that dude's ring, which I trot on back to him. He thanks me, pays me, and tells me to "take the ring to my beloved", which... uh... She isn't here. It's kind of implied that she's the village elder? But I don't see her around. Maybe in the Dry season.
Down south we hit the Ozmone Plains, which are like the Giza Plains except reskinned a bit, and also it is not raining. It's pretty and lush and green with wide-open blue skies and of course the entire area is full of things that want to kill everybody. Also bunnies. The bunnies do not appear to want to kill me, BUT I'M WATCHING THEM.
I also very nearly have my first -accidental- party wipe. An enemy called the "Bull Croc" appears, and while I'm not paying attention I attack it. Dude is much, MUCH stronger than I am. Like, T-Rex-towards-game-start strong. I am however much better equipped than I was at game start. When the epic battle is done, the Bull Croc is dead, and Balthier is the only one out of the six party members left standing... although this is because he hid behind Belias and used the big guy as a meat shield. I am not ashamed. It worked.
Then another, even MORE powerful monster called "Aeros" attacks. I get the hell out of Dodge.
I... by all rights that should've caused a death-and-reload situation. I have no excuse for NOT getting a game over there. Praise the Sun!
Eventually we reach Jahara, homeland of the Garif, who are... I'm not gonna say funny-looking, but they have enormous horns and wear big masks all the time and appear to be covered in shaggy red fur. So they're both funny looking and sort of weirdly appealing to me and I kinda want to hang out with these guys for a long time. "War-Chief Supinelu" greets us at the doors, and makes an "Ah" sound when we tell him why we're there. Of course! More humans here to ask about nethicite!
Wait. What?
He also drops some ancient tribal wisdom, "Look with your eyes, listen with your ears." All this time I've had that backward! No wonder the view looks so weird out either side of my head! Thanks, War-Chief! YOU HAVE CHANGED MY WHOLE LIFE AROUND.
None of the Elders actually know anything about nethicite, though some of them comment it's not the first time they've been asked recently. The party troops on up to meet the Great Chief and ask him. Ashe pulls rank to get us an audience, and the Garif decide that they'll accept this. The Great Chief is kind of irritated. "You have USED this Nethicite?"
"Not I. I was hoping you could show me how." Ashe replies, apparently failing to read the tone of the room. It doesn't matter, though. The Chief doesn't know either. Long ago, the Gods gave his people a gift of nethicite. They had no idea how to use it then or now, and eventually the Gods took their gift back and gave it to "a human king" instead. At least the Chief is -sorry- he can't help. Besides, it's no use. This stone has already expended all its Mist. It needs to charge for ages. Ashe's descendants could use it, maybe.
(The Gods, I want to point out, are ASSHOLES in this scenario. You don't just RE-GIFT shit you gave to OTHER PEOPLE. )
Now, just who was it that was asking about the nethicite? The answer enters, stage left. Hi, Larsa!
Larsa is enthused to see the party here. He both needs an escort, and he pleads with Ashe to help him stop the war that's brewing. "Neither of our countries can afford this now!" he insists. Ashe is kind of pissed off. What does she care if there's a war? Well, what if someone used nethicite in the middle of Rabanastre? Larsa has no illusions about his brother. He KNOWS he'd nuke a city off the map to prove a point.
Ashe spends that evening trying to work out what to do. In the middle of the night, she sees a vision of Lord Rasler again, and follows it out of her hut to... where Vaan is waiting?
"You saw him too, huh?" Vaan asks, moody. "Like at the King's Tomb?"
Vaan has been trying to figure out who the person he kept seeing was. Maybe his brother? After all, he barely knew there WAS a Prince Rasler. Ashe has some sympathy, as Basch told her all about Reks. Vaan just seems... frustrated, really. HE never joined the army. HE never tried to get revenge against the empire. HE never really tried to become a sky pirate. What did he do? Run away from home, follow Ashe around the countryside aimlessly, without ever even asking why he was there.
"I'm done with it. I'm through running I'm ready to find a purpose, to find some real answers." Vaan decides, and thus takes his first step towards becoming an actual character in our story instead of a walking camera. The party decides to join Larsa, and try to prevent the war. Balthier plots out a course towards the Sacred Mountain of Bur-Omisace.
"And why are you here? What are you looking for?" Basch asks Balthier, as if trying to trip him up the way he did Vaan.
Balthier, of course, has a better answer. "I'm here to see how the story unfolds. Any self-respecting leading man would do the same."
Balthier is IMMUNE to your ONTOLOGICAL BULLSHIT.
Next Time: More mark-hunting, more travel.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 01:46 pm (UTC)Also, I am rooting for Vaan to find his purpose and become a real little character! I guess I always feel sorry for the picked-on.