FF6 O_o - Page 4

Celes getting bitch slap by the guards

Although, I'm pretty sure I either had Gau, or got him shortly after. Either way, I remember him being in one of the split parties. Maybe I'm jsut crazy though...

Yeah, you get Gau on Sabin's route.

To me the opera was kind of boring and pointless. In terms of storytelling, meaningful development, or comedy, there was little to be had. It also marked the FF series' progression towards longer cutscenes and shifting playtime away from battles/dungeons to mandatory town or plot progression. That's just a personal preference for me; I know many disagree.

Meh, personal preference is a personal preference. I loved that scene, and while it was great I can understand why others aren't as thrilled with it. In the same way I'll start freaking out in movie theaters if I like the score, even if the movie is terrible!

A few months ago I showed my girlfriend the scene at the end of FF7 disc 1 on youtube. What really got me into that scene was the fantastic way they dealt with the music. My girlfriend isn't into music so much as writing (she's a play write), and she was so thoroughly unimpressed with the dialogue that she made me stop the video and go on a five minute rant. Some people just receive things differently, even if the majority of the video game community disagrees.

OK here we go!

Recall last section the party was at the beginning of the three scenarios. This section will do two of three.

Originally, I thought I was able to choose and play only one of the three. That's why I chose to play Terra's scenario first. In retrospect, this was a good decision as it was very short and simple.

Terra's scenario:
Terra's task is to escort Banon to the village of Narshe (the same village Terra went through in Part 1) to see the Esper there. To enter the village, however, the party needed to use the secret exit Locke used - so I was right that the exit needed to be used again.



There is nothing else worth mentioning for this. Some enemies in the cave got modified and there was a few extra places that were available to explore (as far as I could tell). It was mostly plain - it took me very little time to reach the destination.



Terra's scenario was done at this point.

Sabin's scenario:
I chose this one next.



Sabin started on a completely different continent (way to go, man). There was no clue as to where to go, but there was a town nearby... worth a shot....

And Shadow was there!



For the first time I could play Shadow. His statistics was largely unimpressive, but he did have the Throw ability. After buying some throwing items from the merchant in that town, Shadow could do about 400 damage - very respectable - except Gils don't grow on trees so I was only able to buy 10 Shurikens.

What I should have done at this point was to put the Genji Glove on Shadow so he could dual-wield (I couldn't do this on Sabin because I had only one claw for him). However, because Terra's scenario finished so quickly, I didn't expect myself to be needing this (I was also worried that Shadow may leave my party abruptly (given his character traits), bringing my Genji Glove with him. This proved to be somewhat a mistake.

As suggested by Shadow, Sabin and Shadow went to the Empire's camp not so far away.



The duo discovered the following information while they were there.



At this point I was introduced to another character. Cyan.



Cyan was a warrior. He had an ability called SwordTek. It's pretty simple - you select it, a timer starts, the longer you wait the better the ability Cyan uses.

Cyan was the Retainer of the Doma Castle. And boy was he powerful - he singlehandedly stopped the first invasion of the Empire.

After witnessing his heroic act, the camera switched back to Sabin and Shadow as they listened to some conversations in the Empire's camp.

Basically, in the camp there was someone called Commander Leo - who was an amicable person that cared about his sub-coordinates.



However, Kefka came to the camp too, and he used a trick to displace Leo from his positions. Immediately Kefka ordered the soldiers to poison the water supplies of Castle Doma.






But nope. Kefka didn't care about the prisoners. Upon hearing this, Sabin and Shadow came out of hiding trying to stop Kefka - but Kefka fled.
+ Show Spoiler +

Back in Doma's Castle, everyone was dying - including the King...



And Cyan's family (I believe wife + daughter)....



Enraged, Cyan went to the Empire's camp himself for revenge, where he met up with Shadow and Sabin.



After some fighting, the party escaped on a set of MagiTek Armor.



After this, it was decided that Sabin and others should go south - somewhere that could bring him back to Narshe to unite with Edgar and the others. To do this, they had to cross a place called Phantom Forest.



I think I might have made this place a lot more difficult than what it should be. At the time, the only Blitz I used for Sabin was Pummel - it was not until much later that I realized Sabin also had Fire Dance - a far more powerful Blitz that dealt decent damage AGAINST ALL ENEMIES. Unfortunately, because I did not know this, I had only abilities that attacked single targets. Also the party had no healers - so I had to rely on potions and tunics. Even worse was that Locke was not in this party so I couldn't even steal any potions along the way. The only way to get more potions was to go back to where Sabin met Shadow and restock there.

After some walking, the party arrived at a train station.



Originally, Sabin wanted to check it out for survivors. It turned out this was a ....



On the train, there were ghosts, like this one.



If you talked to the ghost, you would actually be able to make it join the party.



Interesting. From what I saw, however, the Ghost did little damage. The only highlight was an ability Ghost had - Possession. Basically it would instantly kill an enemy - but the Ghost would be gone, too. However, after a Ghost was gone I could get a new one.

After making a few steps on the train, the train started and the party was unable to get off. In order to get off, apparently the party needed to go the engine room to stop the train first. Unfortunately it was not easy as many, many ghosts quickly ganged up on the party.






The brilliant Master Sabin jumped the train in order to avoid them.

After walking a bit, FINALLY there was a save point! Beside it, the party could also get healed to full for free - by eating the food served by ghosts.



Another weird thing I saw was the following .... this happened as I was planning to open a chest.



And.... well, that guy took the chest and ran T_T. Owel...

On the next compartment, an odd NPC told me how to stop the train.



So I went there....



OK. This part made me rage. Apparently when I tried to stop the train, the train would jump on me and engage in a battle!




I fucked up here big time as I came in battle not fully healed (I was short on potions). The ghost train had an ability that would damage everyone for about 200... and apply a status Seizure (not sure what it does). I was owned by this train many, many times.

At the end I realized that this train could be damaged by potions and pheonix down... sigh... a realization after about 5 tries.

As the Phantom Train was defeated the party was let go.



As the train was departing again, something happened.




But Cyan couldn't catch them. It was kind of touching.

Through the Phantom Forest, the party advanced to Baren Falls. At this point Shadow left the party.



But Sabin and Cyan formulated the next part of the Grand Return to Narche.



I did something really stupid here. Instead of jumping off Baren Falls, I backtracked for some reason (probably because I thought there was a fork somewhere that allowed me to get to Veldt) all the way until the town which Sabin met Shadow. After wasting about 45 minutes on it I couldn't find anything, so I came back to Baren Falls... I almost wanted to smash my keyboard when I realized I should have never left there.



The backtracking was not totally bad. At least at this point I realized Sabin could use Fire Dance.



Which made the entire thing very easy after this point.

After jumping off, a familiar scene appeared.



Yet another character was introduced at this point.




His (?) name was Gau. Unfortunately after Sabin met him, he immediately disappeared. Without any clues of where to go, I made the party to go to the only visible town on the world map... on the way there, the party would sometimes encounter Gau.



It was very easy to defeat him, but since I got to rename Gau, he must be a playable character (sooner or later). O well.

After reaching the town, some shopping was done. However, it was this NPC that gave the key piece of information.



Yep. He was referring to Gau! Apparently I needed to buy some Dry Meat and throw at Gau when he appeared. This was sort of similar to "friendly monsters" in FF9.

I went outside and did just that... and Gau joined.



Gau mentioned a shiny treasure he found. Sabin and Cyan decided to check it out.



Backtracking to the Dry Meat town, the following part was kind of funny:





I guess they can make a family completely in silence. Moving on, I believe Gau was like a blue mage... although I am not 100% of how to learn skills. Owel, I was never a big fan of blue mage anyways so I probably won't be using him a lot.

I hope this won't be a deadly mistake - like what happened in + Show Spoiler +.

Anyways, after some travelling on the world map the party found the cave and the treasure.



It's useage is simple.



The party decided to jump in water and let the current bring them to Narshe.



This is what happened after they jumped in (a familiar scene, isn't it?)



After Sabin regained consciousness it was apparent that the party got washed to the town of Nikeah.


Nothing special here, except a Dancer trying to flirt with Cyan.



Cyan apparently did not like it.



There was something odd here. The Dancer mentioned that she WANTED TO JOIN HIM, but she didn't actually join the party. This was a bit disappointing... maybe I didn't do something right, because it was obvious from the "Skills" screen that I should expect a Dancer to join my party soon.



Also, sometimes the loading screen has the sprite of that dancer in it - she must play a role!. O wells, I don't need all of the secret characters to beat the game.

Anyways, this pretty much conclude Sabin's scenario. It was a LOT longer than Terra's.

I think I will write Locke's scenario tomorrow.

Mog uses Dance. He was one of the Moogles who helped Locke in that early battle in Narshe.