Evil Empire (Day 24)

It's so hard to play a game that I haven't played before without stumbling down beginner's traps. First of all you don't know who's going to leave, so you're never too sure about who to devote your leveling up on. It's especially heart-breaking when the person that you've been leveling up leaves and you lose a chunk of your equipment. In Final Fantasy IV, I knew exactly when to strip Kain's armor off when he deserts you; it really came in handy later on. Anyways, I finally got Leon, and it seems like he is the last party member.

I fought some notable bosses. First up, the Roundworm that was infesting inside of Leviathan. Yes, he's in this game, and he does wreck your ship (as a prequel to what will happen in FFIV?). But instead of just separating your party, he swallows you whole and you have to battle the monsters from within him. The cool thing is that you gain RICARD. Can we say Kain's template? He's a dragoon that's been trained from the Kingdom of Deist. I guess it was shocking to see him for the first time in Final Fantasy II, but now it makes FFIV not so ground-breaking. I thought that they just added Chocobos and Dragoons out of no-where. Nope, they both started in FFII.




Next there is this White Dragon. Dragons look really cool in Final Fantasy, and for some reason, you can't help but wonder how Enix thought about this. If Final Fantasy had dragons, imps, and golems to fight, what special monsters were reserved for Dragon Quest? Anyways, the boss was a cinch, and I really think I'm a bit over-leveled for the game again.

I reached Mysidia, the land of the Mages, and bought the HOLY spell. I found FLARE in Mysidia Tower. Naturally I found the ULTIMA spell there too. I guess it's the first time to see that spell. It was not in Final Fantasy IV, but returned in later episodes. This is so trippy, I'm finally piecing the parts together. The spells sound strong, but the game's spell system involves powering them up, which is a total drag. You get ULTIMA, and it starts at level 1 ULTIMA, that does like 60 damage. You can hit like 1000 already. Anyways, tough stuff.


After defeating the Emperor at Paloom, we find out that LEON was leading the empire to destroy you again. You confront him at his palace, and just when the fight begins, he says something totally wicked. Actually, it was kind of funny, I had to take a picture of it. "Weak words, from the weak". There's something so blatant about it that it cracked me up. The fight did not happen because we find out that the Emperor resurrects himself from HELL and claims Ricard's life. Yes, he dies. For a silly video game from the 80's, a lot of people die. Of course Leon realizes his wrong ways and to combat a greater evil, he joins me. Hurrah! I'll leave you guys with some numbers.

• Game Time: 19 hrs 7 mins
  
• Total Time: 40 hrs 45 mins
• Deaths: 2 (from FFII)
  
• Days: 24 of 80