FF6 O_o - Page 2

FF6 and 7 are my favorites of the series. I'm disappointed I didn't pick up 6 until after I did 7,8,9 and 10 since it was far above my expectations.

I'm a huge fan of videogame music and FF6 is the overall champion with the Opera sequence. No, I don't think it is overhyped at all - you either love it or you don't really care. The song has quite a bit of depth, which I can't imagine is easy to do in a midi file, plus it plays on the Celes-Locke love line before they're separated not too long after this sequence. Not to mention that the words are very appropriate to what we imagine she feels during the separation.



I have a version where two opera singers and orchestra perform the song. It is abounding in awesomeness!

As I mentioned last time, Locke came to rescue Terra.


However the Empire's soldiers are coming! Luckily for Locke, a trio of Moogles came to rescue.



Yes, you saw that right. Even though on the map they appeared to be soldiers, in battle they were beasts. Even though these were the same beasts Terra defeated back in the village, Locke did not have the Magitek ability. In fact his damage is quite low, about 60-80ish. Luckily, the Moogles didn't suck as much as he did. As you can see from the shot, that Moogle in particular used a flail :O

After about 8 battles, the Empire's forces were defeated. There was a miniboss at the end, but nothing the Moogles could not handle.





Locke brought Terra along and ran through the cave. There was a secret exit to the cave that is near the entrance of the village. Locke said the secret exit is important... I guess I might use it again sometimes.

Anyways, it appeared that the Empire had the village in lock-down and it was no longer possible for Locke and Terra to go back. Instead it was suggested by someone (probably Locke or an NPC, I forgot whom) to go southwest - through a desert - to a castle.

Travelling to the castle is actually walking on the world map. I could save anywhere I want. Unfortunately Terra was no longer on the Magitek Armor - her offensive abilities largely decreased. Now she could do about 60 damage in melee (she used swords and knives). However, she could also use Magic - there were three available to me - Cure, Fire, and Antdot (Poisona). To conserve mana I didn't use Cure much, but Fire was doing about 70 damage vs all, and 250 damage vs one. Wow! Comparably Locke was largely useless - I just used him to steal stuffs.



Upon entering the castle I was introduced to another character, Edgar - the Lord of this castle.



After some chatting, Edgar decided to help Terra. He stated three reason (they were quite funny):







I am not quite sure what he meant by "abilities" here (from what I see below, he did not refer to her ability to use magic). But o well. Moving on...

Locke and Edgar left, leaving Terra behind. After talking to the guard around I got my one and the only clue as to how to advance the story:



Yep. Really useful right there. The castle was very big and it took me a while to figure out where to go. In particular, one NPC said this:



Maybe Terra will be a Mage Knight (she was already using swords).

After talking to the Matron in the castle, it was revealed that Edgar had a twin brother, Sadin.



Apparently there was a struggle for the inheritance of the throne. To avoid fighting Sadin relinquished his right and went on self-exile. However, since I got to name this character, I am sure I will be able to play him some time in the future. Afterwards Edgar returned and everything resumed as normal, until Kefka showed up (the one that planted the Slave Crown on Terra)



His purpose was simple. He wanted his sex-slave Terra back.



I laughed so hard at Edgar's reply:



At the same time, Locke removed Terra to avoid a conflict with the Empire.



It appeared that Terra was very confused as to what to do. She was loyal to the Empire but now her life was upside-down. Locke just told her to not worry about it for now.





Some moments later, Edgar learned that his castle was on fire.



Yep. Him again. Edgar, Locke, and Terra jumped off the castle and escaped on chocobos, however.



Kefka's men saw this and chased them. After some running on the desert the party was caught and a battle engaged.



The following part cracked me up.

I began the battle with Terra casting "Fire" (remember she can use magic). Upon doing this, however, the battle paused as Edgar was totally surprised.



Locke came to ask him what happened.



And Edgar told Locke he just saw Terra using Magic. Now Locke got surprised the shits out of his mind, too.





However that was NOT the first time Locke saw Magic. In fact, on the way to the castle, Terra used Magic in front of Locke many, many times. But I guess Locke had never seen Magic before so he didn't even know what was Terra doing back then. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

This is also the first time Edgar was in battle. He looked like a Knight, but he has a skill tab called "Tools", which makes me think he was more like a "Tinker", for example in FFTA2. The only option I had at the time was "Autocrossbow", an ability that damages all targets for about 100 damage, and DOES NOT COST MANA. Awesome!

With this ability the party quickly dispatched the Empire's forces. Kefka swore revenge for this humiliating defeat.



The story moved forward to the next objective, as you can see below:





The Returners is actually an organized group of people that fights the Empire. To reach there, I need to go across a cave to the other side of the mountain. Since the party was on chocobo, there were no random encounters so it was quite easy to get to the entrance of the cave.



Here's a picture of the character screen:



Notice only Terra has MP! The other characters don't seem to have MP at all. This is certainly strange... basically, for the other characters, there is no need to use the physical attack if you have an ability that does more damage since nothing costs mana. In most FF games, most, if not all abilities cost mana, even the "non-magical" ones. A good example would be Armor Break and Mug from FFX. Since Edgar had no MP, his abilities could be spammed... interesting.

Anyways, the party got off the chocobos in front of the cave. This seemed to be a good time to save.

You will find yourself on a floating island eventually. You will have to escape off it and there will be a count down. Make sure you stay on the floating island until your time is almost up and Shadow will rejoin you, then you may leave. (The last 10 seconds of the count down I believe.) It's really a big thing beginners tend to miss.