Win or lose, it doesn't matter and the outcome is the same. I elected to try to win but without expending any consumables-attackattackattackattack led Bartz the Ninja to victory. Of course, he gets captured anyway due to a gas trap being left behind. Meanwhile, Galuf is waging war on Exdeath's castle by trying to cross the Big Bridge. Exdeath uses his newfound prisoners to dissuade further attacks, saying he'll kill them if they proceed. aluf shows how awesome he is by borrowing his granddaughter's dragon, flying straight into the castle, dropping down 30 feet twice and decking himself out in the best equipment I have access to right now.
As you can see I took now damage, and with no consumables used either! His first crit was blocked by the Guardian Dagger, and then his regular attack was evaded by the Elf Cape. 3 attacks was enough to make him run away and free Bartz, Reina and Faris. Galuf went over to Thief, Reina to Summoner and Faris to Dancer, filling the requirement of no more than one of each class at all times post-Earth Crystal. The Ribbon I picked up in Karnak starts seeing use here-it's loads better than I thought it was. Defense is higher than any other armor I have for a long while, it boosts all stats by FIVE (this is huge because stats don't increase with level) and it protects against roughly half the status effects in the game. I quickly found out this party needs more daggers-I had to equip one of my old Mythril Daggers. After escaping the castle, it was time to take on the Big Bridge.
Cue music.
This is pretty much how the bridge goes. Galuf Steals, Bartz defends, Faris defends, Reina summons Ramuh and everything dies. Ramuh has such a cool summon animation though, so I don't really care. The Gilgamesh fight is pretty tough though, since my party is really good at area of effect damage and not so much concentrating it on a single target.
Genji equipment? Nah, Gilgamesh hasn't found any of that stuff yet (note: I'm going to be making 99 copies of those for the novelty of it) The first phase of the fight is pretty simple since Gilgamesh hasn't thrown up his array of buffs yet. Of course, once you deal 4000 damage he goes berserk and that's when the fight really starts.
I had had Reina use Image (the Ninja ability) to keep her alive as my main damage dealer, but Gilgamesh's opening Jump attack oneshot her! Ummm...that's unsurvivable from max HP too. I quickly lost control of the fight and had to use 15 Phoenix Downs getting everyone back alive. I'm running low on these, but thankfully before long I'll be able to have a full stock. The attack that's dealing 0 damage is Electric Shock-the Ribbon gives a hefty magic defense boost too, which means Faris is rather tanky for her low Vitality stat. So after finally taking down Gilgamesh, there were a few more battles on the bridge. I couldn't quite use Ramuh to kill NeoGaluras, since they absorb lightning, but simply attacking twice did the trick. Exdeath puts up his barrier, and we get blasted to Grociana. Yes, this is the official name, it's what Galuf calls the area. Supposedly there's a lot of wild beasts around here.
You do not want to know how many tries it took to steal that Phoenix Down. I don't either, but I know it was over 10 minutes of constant stealing and defending until the 10/256*4/5 chance finally went my way. It's only a 1/32 shot, it should not take more than 50 tries, and yet, it did. At least duping Mythril Shields from a Shield Dragon in Kuzar Castle went much smoother- especially since I pulled a pre-emptive strike. Also, I grabbed 99 Revivifies (Holy Waters) off of a Faerie Orc and purchased some new armor for Reina and shiny new Orichalcon Daggers for the guys. I won't have to resort to glitching money much longer, just until Barrier Tower where 1 rare steal later, all of my money issues forever get solved. By that, of course I mean over 2 million gil profit from a single battle. Anyway, I finally walked southeast and then north to find a Moogle, who fell in a hole. We jumped in after him, because Reina wants to save the Moogles. Me? I just want to save the frames.
Obligatory undead boss and obligatory overpowered fire attacks vs. undead/flying-y things. I re-loaded a savestate before Tyrasaurus to kill it the legit way after getting this one hit cheese instant kill. It was no more difficult, just summon Ifrit twice and throw 2 Fire Scrolls. Ironically, this is the less costly option.
After saving the Moogle, he told me not to walk through the desert. I promptly saved and ignored his warnings, walking through 3 patches of desert without encountering a LandCrawler, an inescapable battle with 15,000 HP. Then, in the Moogle Village, like every good RPG hero I looted it for all it was worth: finding 1 Ether, 1 Cabin, 1 Phoenix Down, 1 Dancing Dirk, 10001 gil, and another Elf Cape. Making a Moogle fall in love for said Elf Cape is a bit on the mean side though...but at least they're telepathic and as such Krile can find us? But only because there's a Moogle in Bal Castle and Krile can speak to animals? Then why does love at first sight work here anyway, wouldn't the Moogle know that it's someone in a Moogle SUIT? And why is there a Moogle Suit in a village of Moogles anyway? Oh well, +1 FF9 reference spotted-Lowell in Lindblum dresses up as a Moogle to escape fangirls, and Zidane gets it as a Key Item. But now I'm off topic, and Bartz and co. have made it back to Bal Castle alright.
Galuf is revealed to be a king. Gasp, royalty in the party of the Final Fantasy game-though this one is an outlier, 75% royalty (80% if you want to be picky). Fairs pretends to be a shopkeeper, getting a Harp from the weapon shop dude. I sell it straight back to him as well as everything in their storeroom, along with everything else useless I was still holding onto. That's one good thing about the Fiesta, you don't have to hold on to old equipment thinking "am I going to need this later when I switch classes?" The Wind Drake (Hiryuu) is sick, so Krile says we need to go to Hiryuu Mountain to get some Hiryuu Weed (Dragon Grass). Of course, one of Exdeath's goons ambushes us the moment we step outside, and is promptly defeated without breaking a sweat. I thought this game was harder than that?
Look at those cool special effects =P. The town of Kelb is another plot hub, where we find out Dorgan, Bartz's father, fought alongside Galuf vs. Exdeath 30 years ago as one of the original Dawn Warriors. He stayed behind out of remorse for sealing a great evil within Bartz's world, and said goodbye to his friends forever. Also, I bought more throwing weapons YAY. I moved the Dancing Dagger to Reina, and put 2 Kodachi on Bartz, and replaced my Stealth Uniforms with Strength Suits, and those snazzy Green Beret hats with Bandanas. It was finally time for another dungeon-Hiryuu Mountain.
Or Valley. Whatever, it's a mountain to me and the World Map. Normally I would skip the Golem battle, but my Summoner would very much like to obtain it. Unfortunately when Golem appears alone, all you can do is eat the hit. I found 12000 gil in a few chests before finally hitting on the correct encounter.
To complete this little sidequest, Team Sidequest has to defeat the Bone Dragon and Zombie Dragon without killing Golem. Let's see, he probably absorbs Earth element, so let's try Titan. That backfired a little bit, knocking off 60% of Golem's HP for those undead dragons! I ended up healing Golem 3 times, 2 Hi-Potions, one after a critical HP attack, and an Elixir were used ON GOLEM.
How often do you see Elixirs used on an enemy? Either way, I saved Golem and one more Summon was added to my spellbook. 1 step later, I found the Bone Mail, a situationally useful piece of armor with by far the best defense in the game: but at a terrible cost, the wearer becomes undead.
Faris was NOT happy with this overgrown plant, and pulled out 2 consecutive Sword Dances on !Dance*. Reina even joined in on the fun with one from the Dancing Dirk, before I determined Titan was the correct move. There was no danger in this fight, and it was a flawless victory.
*!Dance randomly chooses between 4 attacks at equal odds, Sword Dance which is a 4x power attack, Jitterbug Duet which emulates Drain, Mystery Waltz which emulates Psych/Aspil/Osmose, and Tempting Tango which confuses the target. The Dancing Dirk/Dagger has a 50% chance to use !Dance on any given attack.
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