FFVI: Session 1 Part 2

Reminder: For these first few sessions I was an idiot and did not record my gameplay, so some game screenshots are from NintendoComplete on YouTube.

Welcome back to my first session of Final Fantasy VI, where it turns out I actually have a lot to say so we're dividing it up into 3 different parts.

Last time on Finally Fantasy:

• We met a girl named Terra who can do magic, and was being mind-controlled by an Evil Empire. But she touched a creature called an Esper and got better, though she is still missing her memory.
• We met a guy named Locke who is part of an underground resistance to the Empire called the Returners, who is enlisted to help Terra out so that maybe she can join their cause. Also he is definitely not a thief
• We met a King named Edgar, who maybe doesn't understand that women are normal people, but he is at least also part of the Returners and wants to take down the Empire. Also he has a twin/younger brother out there somewhere.
• There is also a Bad Guy named Kefka and he laughs way too much

The gang has just fled Kefka and Figaro Castle (the castle is fine, it went into Desert Submarine mode) on a trio of chocobos, which is now where we continue our story.

The Future is Mode 7

We are treated to riding a chocobo on the world map in a 3rd-person view, which makes even MORE use of Mode-7 than simply walking around on the overworld. I find it incredibly delightful even if it's a little disorienting (at least the position indicator on the mini-map shows you which way you're facing.) We're now headed back to that cave I found earlier so that we may go to South Figaro.

We get to the town without much incident and start exploring. I notice that the architecture of this town feels really windy and unique, and I start reminiscing about my time with RPG Maker as a child and how un-creative my own town layouts had been. We head into a cafe and hear some gossip about a guy named Duncan and his son Vargas, so I'm sure we will run into these people later. There's also a foreboding figure (with a dog?) sitting at the bar. When I try to talk to him, we get another introduction splash, and find out he is an Edge Lord.

His name is Shadow, and I already do not care. In the basement of this establishment, there's also a guy delivering cider back-and-forth to another guy who won't talk to me unless I have cider. I am unable to obtain cider from the delivery guy's room or from the bar (maybe because the Edge Lord is in the way) so I quickly give up on this side-quest. I do the regular town stuff: explore, talk to people, stay at the inn, load up on equipment and items, and wander around a rich guy's house and plunder a bunch of stuff from his secret passage. There is maybe a plot thread that the rich guy is talking with the Empire's military general, I'm sure that won't come up later. We also end up talking to the aforementioned Duncan's wife, who says he is out training at Mt Kolts. This is the second time we've heard someone refer to this place, so I determine I should probably go there next and leave town.

Before I find Mt Kolts, I notice a little house on the world map, and head there first. It is empty, but Edgar recognizes some smells, some flowers, some dishes, and some tea. Before the game lets me leave, Edgar exclaims that Sabin (his brother from earlier, if you recall) must have been there. Once we go outside we run into an old man, who tells us Sabin left for the mountains after he learned that Duncan (the other guy from earlier) was slain. Intrigue! We continue onward.

As we enter the mountain's caverns, it progresses like any other standard JRPG dungeon-tunnel. Eventually we start seeing some shadowy figure hopping around in the background; I assume it is Sabin. The random encounters are starting to drive me crazy, and they are also starting to require some actual tactics to get through them without taking a lot of damage. I start making a point of using Edgar's Sound-Blaster-tool-thing to confuse groups of enemies off the bat and this seems to help me survive fairly unscathed.

We make it to the shadowy figure who is not Sabin but is, in fact, Vargas. He attacks us, and after fighting him for a bit, Sabin shows up! And this brings up another small critique I have about this game: what is with the major size difference between enemy sprites and player sprites in battle?

It is especially made ridiculous here when Sabin shows up and faces off against him: in this view, Vargas appears to be like 8 times the size of him. These battle sprites work with monsters that don't appear to have a human scale, but it doesn't really work when you are fighting a human man. Vargas even has his own special sprite that we just saw on the overworld! Why couldn't we just use that? This was also something that bothered me when I played FFIV (but not as much in FF1, since you are pretty much just fighting monsters in that game and not very many humans.) I can understand wanting to take advantage of the larger scale battle graphics to show off more detailed artwork, but it still ruins my immersion a little.

Whiny tangent aside, Sabin reveals that Vargas killed Duncan and Vargas manages to (literally) blow away the rest of the party, leaving us with only Sabin to fight him. After a couple hits, I start to wonder if the game wants me to use this "Blitz" command I'm seeing on the screen. I try to use it and get a message about the input being invalid.

Here I want to point out I HAD been using the other character's skills to this point: I made liberal use of Locke's "Steal" command to net myself a bunch of free healing items, and I had been using Edgar's tools when I needed them, so I hadn't just been button-mashing the 'FIGHT' command, okay?! Still, I keep alternating between regular attacks and screwing up the "Blitz" command until the game actually starts to yell at me about it. I try to follow the instructions on the screen and continue to screw up until I die.

Having learned my lesson during my FF1 playthrough, I pull up the original instruction manual for the game (which appears to continue the tradition of existing as a partial game walk-through) and look up how to pull off Blitz commands (I also try to avoid spoilers but can't help but notice that, holy crap, it looks like we're gonna have quite a few party members later.) I manage to get my shit together and successfully execute the 'Pummel' command against Vargas, winning the fight. The brothers are reunited, and Sabin joins the party.

We make it the rest of the way through the mountain, and I get lost on the overworld map screen for another 10 minutes. We eventually find our way to the Returners' hideout, and have a meeting with an old man named Banon. He's maybe the leader of the Returners. Anyway he starts talking about how Terra is a Bad Ass and then starts telling a tale that sounds an awful lot like Pandora's Box, except it is a dude opening the box (okay so women can no longer even be the cause for all of Mankind's suffering? Must the patriarchy take everything away from us??)

At first I thought this was very off-topic but turns out he was using it to tell Terra she's the ray of hope that was left in the box, or something. Terra is still very traumatized by everything and goes to sleep. After she wakes up, we chat up some people and get some more Plot Exposition. Locke tells us he's hated the empire ever since they jailed one of his loved ones, various returners from the hideout let us know things are looking grim, Sabin tells us that Edgar is very trustworthy, and Edgar says Terra needs to make up her own mind on whether or not she wants to help. After the Exposition is done, we can meet up with Banon outside and he asks if Terra will help, and we are given a yes/no option. I select yes, because I am a big softy who can't be mean in a video game even if it's just to experiment (to this day I have serious Questions about people who can play the Genocide route of Undertale.)

Anyway, now that Terra is officially a Returner, Banon has a plan and we have a big meeting about it. Banon thinks the Empire is powering their Magitek armor by draining Espers of their magic, which is what historians believe caused the War of the Magi. He suspects since Terra has special powers, they can bring her to the Esper we met at the beginning of the game and maybe she can wake it up and that will somehow help things.

The meeting is interrupted by a wounded Returner entering the hideout and collapsing, telling us that South Figaro has been taken by the Empire. Banon sends Locke to check things out in South Figaro, and Edgar determines that we should go ride a raft down the river to go back to Narshe (the name of the town at the beginning of the game.)
At this point, I want to bring up another small gripe about this game so far: I'm not a huge fan of most of the character portraits in the party menu. I want to be clear that I think Yoshitaka Amano's art is absolutely gorgeous and I love its' ethereal qualities, but I just don't think it translates super well on the SNES.

But Banon? God, just look at him. Look at this picture. He's glorious.

Regal Lion Men aside, everyone hops on a raft and we start floating down some rushing rapids, experiencing some random encounters on the way. We get some options for which direction we can go, and I pick left, because You Always Go Left. It appears to work, because I am able to get to the end of the segment where we run into an octopus... thing. This thing is so magnificently derpy and unsettling that it is a truly a masterclass in sprite art. It also keeps spitting out comedic one-liners. Why? Who thought of this? What IS Final Fantasy? This is my third game in the series and I'm still not sure how to answer that question.

The other day one of my friends (a big FF fan) asked me what my favorite monster was so far in the games; I responded "eh, none of them have really stuck out to me enough so far." Revisiting my playthrough, I was wrong. It is This Stupid Thing. Forget Zeromus (or whatever its name was), forget Chaos or Garland, forget taking on the Giant of Babil with all my current and former party members. This ridiculous anatomically-incorrect octopus is the first enemy I have encountered in these games that will sit with me until my dying breath. "Seafood soup," I will whisper to a baffled long-term care nurse as my soul departs into the Otherworld.

Anyway, I TPK to this thing once and learn I should have Banon healing all-the-time-always. I manage to defeat it on attempt #2. We then witness a cutscene on the raft where Sabin is an idiot and jumps into the water to possibly continue fighting Ultros (it was not super clear to me) and he gets launched into the air. We return to the overworld and are treated to the image of Sabin's unconscious body floating down another fork of the river as we continue our journey.

And on that cliffhanger, I believe this is where we will leave off. Next time on Finally Fantasy: We finish up my first session of the game, we see what Locke is up to, and the moment finally happens where I completely fall for this game (it is over something very stupid.) I hope to see you then!