After saving our game and replenishing our potion supply, we make yet another trip into the basement of the Moon Palace. We battle our way through the various dragons and sorcerers that attempt to stop us as we advance deeper into the heart of the Moon. On this, our third trip, we are hoping to make it all the way to the bottom. We begin with over 500 high potions, so we can save Rosa’s healing power for tricky spots in battles and use potions to heal after battles end.

We make good progress, much of which is reworking the network of tunnels and subterranean platforms that we got lost in on our first trip here. Once again, however, we reach the fourth level and get stuck. For about fifteen minutes, I can’t seem to find a way to continue deeper. Diligence pays off, however, as I spot a stairway that I earlier missed. We get unstuck and continue to the fifth level.

On this trip down, we’re finding some excellent gear. Crystal Armor for Cecil is making him much stronger defensively, and various armor and weapon upgrades are helping out Rosa and Rydia as well.

But my energy runs out as we get a bit of the way into the fifth level. We’ll continue on tomorrow. At the moment, we’re in good shape. Some of the tougher battles at the treasure chests have burned up about half of Rosa and Rydia’s magic points, but we’ve still got about 450 potions left and plenty of elixirs.

Status: So Far, So Good

Well, after talking about how good Final Fantasy IV was at forcing the player to make meaningful purchasing decisions for most of the game, I now find myself with over 900,000 gil. Humm. So much for meaningful monetary decisions. We buy about 600 high potions and a boatload of elixirs. With this pharmacy in our packs, we should be able to be self-sustaining for even the biggest dungeons. We once again head back to the basement of the Crystal Palace.

The first floor of the Crystal Palace basement has a number of alternate routes. In our second foray into the Crystal Palace basement, we explore a second of these routes. The path takes us winding through secret tunnels and over a variety of levels. At last we come to a dead end, and sitting on a small dias is a brilliant sword.

We grab the sword, but a white dragon attacks us as soon as we grip the weapon. Fortunately, we have gained tremendously in power, and the white dragon is no match for our strength. The beast falls after a short battle, and the sparkling Murasame sword is ours. Edge equips the weapon, which gives him a significant jump in offensive power. We continue to get stronger.

Our return path will take us back to the first floor of the basement, so we teleport out instead. Once there, we replenish our magic and health points, save our game, and prepare for our next trip to the core of the Moon.

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose

We quickly head off through the caverns that lead to the Crystal Palace. Once there, we learn that the palace goes much deeper than we had thought before. Behind the area where we initially met FuSoYa, there is a large room filled with all the crystals that Golbez took. In the middle of this room is a passage down to the basement of the palace.

We take this passage and find ourselves battling through what appears to be a rather extensive network of underground caves. We hack our way down through four levels or so, picking up some random weapon and armor improvements on the way, before we realize that we are totally stuck.

I can’t seem to find a way forward on the path we have taken. Not sure what I’m missing, but falling asleep several times as I did this section of the game didn’t help my sense of direction. I also forgot to replenish my potions and empty out my pack before coming in here. The best plan now seem to be to try this again, as I have no idea where we are, our packs have no room for new stuff we find, our potions are exhausted, and Rosa has only a few magic points left.

We cast teleport and head back to the lunar surface.

We’ll try this again, after resupplying with boatloads of potions and giving our extra crap to the Fat Chocobo.

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose

Or not. I thought for sure we’d be fighting Golbez, but the most remarkable things ensued once we had destroyed the giant’s brain. The tale gets a bit long and winding, so I’ll do the Reader’s Digest abbreviated version here.

FuSoYa manages to convince Golbez that he has been a victim of the real ubervillain: Zemus. Apparently Zemus has been controlling Golbez to have him carry out Zemus’ diabolical plan of destroying the universe as we know it. FuSoYa’s shocking news doesn’t end there, as he tells us that Cecil and Golbez are brothers! Whoa! I didn’t see that one coming. Anyhow, the short of this is that Golbez is now on our side, and he and FuSoYa decide to traipse off to the Moon to kill Zemus.

But the surprises don’t end here, as our ex-buddy, ex-traitor, ex-buddy, traitor Kain shows up. Now that Golbez has come to his senses, apparently Kain has as well. We of course accept him back into our party with open arms, making Kain an ex-buddy, ex-traitor, ex-buddy, ex-traitor, friend. Whew! What plot twists!

After babbling about what to do next, our party dismisses the idea of ordering pizza and chilling with some beers and instead decides to go the Moon to follow after Golbez and FuSoYa. After some random shenanigans, our party ends up back on the Moon, ready for war.

I’m not sure where to go, but I’m guessing the Crystal Palace is as good a place to start as any.

Status: Killing Stuff with a Purpose

Once again we initiate the fight against Final Fantasy IV’s Giant’s Brain. This time, however, we have a plan, and it works perfectly, almost.

We quickly demolish the defensive orb, then turn our attention to the large, main orb. We beat on this for a while, and are happy to see that no black balls of death float over our way! The plan is working!

And then it happens. One slip of the control pad and I have Cecil swing Excalibur at the small offensive orb instead of the larger orb. Ooops. He takes the thing out in one shot, and suddenly we are faced with black balls eating our party again, and a new set of supporting orbs for the main central orb. Argh!

But our team reacts quickly and well. Within seconds we take out the defensive orb, and within a minute or so our party is back up to five full-strength members. Once reestablished, we resume pounding on the central orb. A short while later it explodes, and then we quickly dispatch the last orb.

We’ve won!

Or not…

Golbez walks in and confronts us. Damn. We are so dead.

Status: Saying Last Rites