FF6 O_o - Page 10

Through Setzer's airship, the group got to the Southern Continent - the land of the Empire. Empire soldiers were everywhere.




At this point, I decided to grind a bit to raise my level, as the section at Opera House felt way too difficult for me. I had a very small selection of things to choose from, however, so at the end I decided to kill a particular kind of monster in the desert - Fossil Fang.

First of all, Fossil Fang introduced a new status - Zombie. This is a bit different from FFX, as I found out. Basically, once a character get the Zombie, s/he loses all HP and cannot be control in battle (kind of like being confused). Also, the character is considered dead, so in case only Zombie'd characters are left, it's a game over. The status also persist over battles. The only way to cure it is to use an item called Revive. Lastly, while Zombie'd, the character is INVULNERABLE in battle (but that's useless because it doesn't count as a character that is alive)....




The point is, I chose the worst grinding spot possible, yet still better than all other choices. It is on the world map so I could save after every battle if I wanted to, so it was not too bad. After raising some levels and giving all characters some extra spells, the group went to Vector - the capital of the Empire.



However, the guards didn't let the group inside of the research facility.



Luckily, a Returner nearby helped the group to stealthily enter the facility.





While inside, there were random encounters (but not too difficult). After journeying briefing (including finding some of the first elemental swords), a strange laugh was heard.



O NOES. It's Kefka! It appeared that he recently extracted magic from two Espers, then threw them away. The group decided to track those Espers down.



The room was basically a dumping ground for dead Espers. In this case, Ifrit and Shiva got their magic extracted and left there to die. After talking to them, however, the group had to fight Ifrit.

Sometimes, I think I have played so much FF that I can spoil myself just by thinking of what will happen next. When I fought Ifrit, I correctly predicted that Ifrit would mostly use an assortment of Fire spells - Fire and Fire 2, in this case. To counter this, I decided to use Runic. This was the first time I used Runic in a serious manner and caused serious effect.

Basically, it screwed me up. Although Celes managed to absorb all of the incoming fire spells, she also disabled the party from using Cure. So I could only heal through using potions (not very enjoyable). Luckily the battle was not too hard, so the handicup through Runic did not cause me too much problem. After a bit of battling, Shiva also joined the battle, then the two Espers decided to leave their Magicites in the hands of Edgar, Locke, and Celes.




The group continued to venture inside the facility. On one occasion there was a miniboss - Number 24.



It was awfully easy and Locke managed to steal something from him. Beyond it lied many glass vessels containing Espers.



But they all decided to turn into Magicites... to help Edgar and others. Then Cid showed up. That's right. CID.



It seemed that Celes met Cid before.



Cid did research at this facility for Espers. Then there were some chatting about Magicite. Unfortunately Kefka heard everything.



Locke was angry at Celes, thinking that she betrayed him.



Kefka called in the troops to arrest everyone.



Celes decided to help them by casting a spell. In the aftermath, Kefka, Imperial troops, and Celes were gone. Everyone else remained on scene.




O fuck. Celes was gone. I spelt a lot of time grinding for her, teaching her tons of useful spells, etc. Then she was gone - just like that - without any warnings. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

On the other hand, I was STUPID. It's pretty much guaranteed that the important female characters will go missing at certain part of the game. It's almost always used as a way to advance the plot. Yes, I am talking about the following things in FF7,8,9,10, 4, FFTA2 (I am sure this list is not complete):

+ Show Spoiler +

After everyone recovered, Cid decided to go against the tyranny of the Empire.




So everyone decided to escape. This was fairly simple, although a boss was waiting near the end.



After the fight, Setzer showed up and told Edgar and Locke to go on the airship. In the meanwhile, Kefka reappeared - but no signs of Celes. O FUCK WHERE COULD SHE BE??!!



The party was being chased by the Empire. There were no other choices except leaving the Southern Continent... for now.

Kind of like what happened in FF9