Final Fantasy: Lost in Japanese

Before heading off to Exdeath’s castle for what may be the final showdown, I wanted to travel once again to the castle that held the 12 ultimate weapons. If you recall, the first time I tried to make it through this place, I was able to get to the final room with the weapons. Nothing happened once I got there, however, and on the way out I got mauled by a massive dragon. I’m hoping that this time I can both beat the dragon and figure out how to free up the weapons.

We fly on Hiryuu to the castle entrance and quickly make our way inside. We get lucky again, as we are able to make a straight beeline to the final room without running into one of those massive dragons. Once in the last room, however, I am once again unable to figure out how to obtain any of the weapons. I thought perhaps because I’ve got some Master level members in my party, that they could get a weapon that fit with their job class, but this was not the case. No matter what I tried, I can’t free any of the weapons. There is a sparkling square near the entrance to the room, but nothing I do on that square seems to matter either.

Disgruntled, we attempt to exit the castle, but on the way out we get waylaid by that massive dragon again. I have much better luck against the creature this time, but eventually the beast confuses so many of my party or turns them to stone so fast that I can’t overcome it. After a long battle, we fall to the beast.

I go back to the saved game, readjust some jobs, and give the place one more try. This time the battle against the dragon goes even worse. We get flattened fairly quickly.

I do think I can beat this creature, but at this point I’m not sure why I need to, since I can’t get the weapons in the room behind it. I suppose the dragon could be the guardian of the weapons, and if I beat the guardian I will get the weapons, but I think this is more likely not the case. So rather than spend a lot of time trying to beat this creature at the moment, I turn around and leave. We’ll set our sights on Exdeath’s castle, where I hope we’ll have better fortune.

Status: Downed by Dragons
Photo Credit: wiseacre

After scampering back for a night’s rest in the inn in Final Fantasy Five’s village of Moore, we once again head into the Moore forest. This time we take a straight line for the hidden tunnel and quickly find ourselves in a second section of the woods. The fighting is much the same as the first area, but we’ve gotten a bit smarter since yesterday. Basically, I realized that it makes no sense to let those pesky spell casters suck away our mana 32 points at a time, when we can obliterate entire packs of them with a single 25-point spell. D’oh! This is basic math, I realize, but apparently my head wasn’t on straight yesterday. In any case, we let Fairis start our battles by casting a powerful Aero spell that does much of the work for our party, and we find ourselves making good progress through the woods.

When we least expect it, however, a massive earthquake strikes the forest, and flames start dropping everywhere. Hum, I wonder who could be causing this? We don’t have long to wait, as we shortly find that our path takes us inside the massive Elder Tree, where we see four sparkling crystals in front of us. These crystals are not our friends, however, as they immediately set out to wipe us out.

The fight takes quite a bit of time. If we cast a group magic spell on the crystals, it generally hurts three of them and heals one of them for the identical amount. Progress, sure, but slow going. The crystals hit for some significant damage, and cast spells that can hit each of our party members for over 400 points. Ouch. But in the end, despite some mistakes with healing the crystals, we prevail.

Any joy is short-lived, however, as who should pop inside the tree but Exdeath himself. Apparently he has been waiting for us to appear and battle the crystals for him, as he thanks us and draws the crystals to himself. With their power at his side, he blasts our party to the ground.

Our demise would seem imminent, but a physic connection between some Moogles in Moore Forest and Krile’s Moogle brings Krile and Hiryuu to our rescue just in the nick of time. Or not. Exdeath traps Krile, and looks ready to kill her as well! Krile’s distress, however, brings Galuf to his feet. He summons incredible power, fights his way through the energy of the crystals, and engages Exdeath in one-on-one combat. This would seem to be a one-sided fight, but no matter what Exdeath hits Galuf with, Galuf remains standing. In the end, it is Exdeath who falls!

Or not! Exdeath vanishes—apparently still alive—to his castle. The victorious Galuf, however, crumbles to the ground after the fight and dies. I have to admit, I didn’t see that one coming. In death, however, Galuf transfers all his powers and skills to Krile, who immediately joins our party to replace her fallen grandfather.

And with that dramatic turn of events, we find ourselves pointed at Exdeath’s castle for what may well be a final encounter. We’ll head there shortly, but before we do I want to take a quick trip to that castle of the dragons that gave us so much difficulty when we first landed on the planet. We may also take a quick spin around the planet on Hiryuu to see if there is any place we haven’t visited yet that could help us in the upcoming battle with Exdeath.

Status: Pre-Exdeath.

After three sessions of grinding for gear around in the outskirts of Moore, I had had enough. “Whatever,” I said, “I don’t need that wizard’s robe or another sword. I can do without!” And with that, we headed inside the huge forest that lies to the east of the Moore.

I thought perhaps we would plow through this place, but the enemies we ran into we rather annoying. First of all, there are lots of them. I could barely take ten steps without getting jumped by some sort of evil freak of nature. Usually, groups of three evil trees and a couple of small, mana-sucking spell casters would attack us at once. The damn spell casters were a pain, as they generally would use an Aspire spell to drain off our casters’ mana. Our party now consists of a Time Mage, a Black Mage, a Blue Mage, and a Samurai, so this quickly turned into a bit of a problem: our casters were losing mana at a ferocious rate. Brilliantly (sarcasm on) I decided to conserve the casters’ mana by not having them cast spells.

Complicating things was the fact that it’s kind of hard to tell where you’re going in Moore Forest. There are trees covering your path, and some sort of mist in the air as well. There is one medium-sized area as you enter the forest, and I spent twenty minutes following the outer edge in an attempt to find a path out. After two trips around the outside and countless random fights, our party was down to hardly any mana, and had no idea how to get out of the place.

Then I saw it! Something sparkling and pretty, sitting in a hole in a large tree trunk. I walked over, and sure enough, a secret tunnel opened up, allowing us to move forward. The frustrating thing: this tree is probably only three or four random battles from the entrance of the area. I’d been wandering in loops for no reason. Sigh.

With almost all of our mana gone, we decide to double back to Moore yet again to rest at an inn. We’ll press deeper into the woods tomorrow.

Status: Hoping for Progress

I’d like to say that I’ve earned enough cash to move on, but um, I haven’t. I cranked away on the enemies in the woods for another 20 minutes last night, but I’ve still got a handful of items I want to get from the stores here in Moore. Tomorrow, finally, I hope to move in the forest and begin to search for the Elder Tree, or whatever I’m supposed to find there.

In the meantime, however, I thought I’d take a moment to post some thoughts on Final Fantasy V to date. I’m guessing I’m over halfway through the game, and so this might be a good time to reflect.

First off, I’m really enjoying the combat and job system. I liked Final Fantasy III’s job-based system a lot, but I like this system better. In Final Fantasy III, you had to fight a few battles before you reached full speed in a new job choice, but I like Final Fantasy V’s complete freedom with regards to switching. I also think that Final Fantasy V’s combat system is much better balanced. In FF3, melee weapons seemed inordinately powerful, and certain classes were clearly better than others. The ninja, for example, was an incredibly powerful offensive class. In FF5, however, the combat seems more balanced, and each job class has distinct advantages and disadvantages. The fighting, too, seems more intricate in Final Fantasy V. In Final Fantasy 3 I could overpower most everything with strong melee fighters, but in Final Fantasy V, I have to think a lot more about battle tactics and effective jobs for the fight. Good stuff.

On a negative note, Final Fantasy V’s story is dogmeat compared to the caviar of a story that was in Final Fantasy IV. FF5 reverts to the simple dynamics, and often they don’t make too much sense. Although if I hadn’t played that one week so exhausted and out of focus, I may have a better sense of the story.

Still—although all this may change as I near the end game—I’d have to say that Final Fantasy V is my favorite of the early Final Fantasy games.

One other interesting aside is that I’m still under 30 hours in total time played in this game. My fastest game to date has been Final Fantasy IV, at 46 hours and 4 minutes. This means that I may be on pace for Final Fantasy V to be my fastest game yet! Well, maybe “fast” isn’t the right word for it, maybe “least slow” is more appropriate, but in any case this may be a record setting pace.

Status: Even more Grinding

Okay, this is not the most thrilling post. Basically, I went into the woods around Moore and beat on stuff. Although each battle nets us about 1,500 gil, the stuff they sell in Moore is expensive. After 20 minutes we’ve only managed to make it about half way through the laundry list of things to buy. We’ll do this again in one more session.

What I can’t figure out, though, is what’s up with the Blood Sword that I equipped Bartz with. It’s supposed to be the most powerful weapon he’s got, it has a great power rating, and it sucks the life out of enemies and into Bartz when it hits. But there is only one problem: it sucks. I used it in the tower and during the battle with Atmos, and the thing rarely hits. I’d say once in five times the sword connects, and even then it doesn’t do as much damage as the regular swords that Bartz was using. It was doing the same thing in the woods around Moore, so I finally just gave up on the Blood Sword and stowed it away. Maybe it only hits if Bartz is wounded? Who knows, but the Blood Sword definitely is overrated as far as I can tell.

Status: Grinding