Previous thread: >>11046452A playthrough where (You) are given choices for me to make as I go through the game.In the last part, we unleashed Esper hell upon the Empire, who very meekly and without a hint of treachery asked us to help talk sense into them with SLAVE's help. We then land into not-Mysidia, where we pick up some foggy old bastard, while his cute and funny granddaughter follows us against his wishes. We now learn the lore behind the creation of Magic and the Espers themselves, products of three ancient, mighty beings known here as the Statues.
Gonna just copypaste what I wrote in the previous thread here:I don't know exactly what happened here, but Woolsey made a huge mess out of the nomenclature for these beings. They are usually known as The Statues (though called goddesses here for some reason), and indeed the beings we encounter later on did turn themselves into literal statues, but they are supposed to be GODS. One of them is indeed called Goddess and is very clearly female, but nothing suggests the other two are female as well. I'm guessing this was some attempt at censorship, but then why keep one of them called Goddess (even though the other two had their names changed) and call them goddesses here? Needless to say, this caused a shitton of confusion until the GBA port, which adopts the collective term the Warring Triad, but also correctly calls them gods.
This is also not made very clear, but these Statues here are just that, statues. They're not the REAL Statues. I remember this confusing me a lot when I was younger, not helped by the fact that Woolsey keeps waffling between calling them goddesses and Statues.
I guess this line sort of makes it clear these statues right here are just images, but again, the phrasing is weird. Overall, this was just a fucking mess.
Here we go again.
Well, I guess that's a good place to put your goddesses, I mean Statues, I mean stone goddesses.IIRC, a bit was also left out here where KALIVA explains they sealed themselves because their warring was literally destroying the world or some shit. Maybe the images here still explain it, though.
laughingwiseau.gif
Anyway, brushing aside that clusterfuck of lore, the party comes to the conclusion the Espers were drawn by the magical power present in these images, so they're most likely nearby. Time to look around.
Speaking of which, we actually do get a bit of clarification from these images. These "goddesses" were "banished" from... somewhere, perhaps because they were being troublesome cunts up in their original heavenly realm or something.
And the Espers were originally humans! What a tweest!
Statuebros... they're laughing at us...
When your behavior is so cringe by heavenly standards, you fuck off from the world altogether in embarrassment.
...into stone. Magical, world-shattering stone.
Do they get cranky if you wake them up?
Yeah, not ominous at all.
Anyway, time to get moving and OH ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME
Maybe now, Ziegfried-senpai will notice me!Something DEFINITELY got cut here between those two.
What is this now, round 3? Alright, fuck it.
Yep, guess we're doing this. AGAIN. Ultros has gotten stronger, though, so we just need to keep our HP high. He's still weak to Fire, so let's light him up.
After a few turns roasting his ass, uWu decides to drop in. Does she not know what Ultros can do with those tentacles?
Oh, she can paint, how adorable. Fuck off, brat, I got octopus soup to make.
Ultros ain't having it, either. "Correction" incoming?
Even HUNTER has read enough doujins to know where this is going.
But it seems uWu is the more depraved one.
Unlike Interceptor, Ulty here is not an octopus of taste.
uWu literally threatens to kill herself over Ulty's rejection. Sad!
However, this all seems to be part of uWu's plan somehow. SLAVE gets in on it.
Ultros starts feeling the pressure. HUNTER piles it on further.
The dumb motherfucker is actually considering it.
He sure won't regret it.
uWu draws the portrait, and...
...you can pinpoint the exact moment Ultros's heart broke.
Mindbroken over being played for the fool he is, Ultros retreats.
lol no
>>11053143I forgot about that! So Relm can threaten suicide, but Celes just needs to cheer up?They say that those failed painters who fell down that crevasse perked right up!!
HUNTER, however, recognizes the budding potential in front of him. KALIVA relents, and uWu formally joins.Now, where to begin with uWu? Truthfully, she's kind of a mess. Like KALIVA, she's a pure mage, so she's basically no good as a physical attacker. And just like KALIVA, she comes with no Magic learned. However, KALIVA at least comes with Aqua Rake, whereas uWu only has her skill Sketch, and let's be frank, Sketch sucks. Hard.Most people know it for the infamous Sketch glitch, triggered by attempting to Sketch a Vanished enemy, which causes all kinds of memory corruption. At best it'll give you a ton of random items in your inventory. At worst it'll destroy your save file. This was only the case in the NTSC 1.0 version of the game, however, and we're on 1.1, so we're good on that front. Even without that glitch, however, Sketch is still a broken mess of a skill.The way Sketch works is, you use it on an enemy, and if successful, uWu will attack with one of two of the enemy's own attacks, with one attack being more common than the other (usually a basic physical attack). Notice I said "if successful". Sketch has a random chance to miss, and the lower your level relative to the enemy's, the lower the success rate will be. Later on you can get a headgear that can increase the chance of success, but not by a whole lot. Furthermore, the damage inflicted by the resulting attack is based on uWu's level but NOT her Vigor or Magic power, but rather the enemy's. That means in all likelihood, the attack will be weaker than it should be.So to recap, it's a skill that has a random (often high) chance to miss, is very likely to just result in some basic bitch physical attack most of the time, and even IF it does cast something good, the damage is likely to be disappointing. Not good at all.cont.
>>11053174So what to do with uWu? Well, since Sketch is so unreliable, and she's almost no good as a Fighter (unless you equip her with dual elemental rods and hit a weakness, which CAN work in a few situations, including one coming up soon), this means she is pretty much the ONLY character in the game that is completely reliant on Magic. So we gotta teach her spells, and fast. Her saving grace is she has the game's highest Magic stat, even more than SLAVE, and much of her equipment raises that stat even higher, so once she DOES know good spells, she can make very good use of them. But it's gonna take some time to get her there. For the moment, we'll just have her sit back.
Inspecting uWu's equipment, we find that she comes with some kind of brush as a weapon. Brushes are kind of her specialty weapon, but truthfully, you'll almost never want to use them instead of a rod of some kind. Let's give her an Ice Rod, I guess.Then we look at her Relics, and... she has a Memento Ring equipped! If you recall, we found one in KALIVA's house, and upon inspection the game told us only PACMAN could equip it, but now it seems uWu can as well. VERY suggestive.
Moving onward, we find ourselves in this area. Stepping on any of these strange tiles will cause the floor to cave in, and take us elsewhere.
We choose the bottom tile first. It leads to a screen with bridges we passed on the way earlier, which then leads outside. Here we encounter these enemies, who cast White Wind. This is a Lore KALIVA can learn, so we make sure he sees it. It heals based on KALIVA's current HP, which is pretty nice, though of course you won't want to use it if he's low.
Actually, I forgot there's a few other chests to grab, so I took a detour back and went on the top tile first. There I find two chests, one with a Tabby Suit and another with a ChocoboSuit. Both can only be equipped by uWu and KALIVA, and give an interesting mix of stat increases. I think I'll stick with the Gaia Gear for now, though.
Fuck, sorry, but something just came up. I may have to pause this for a little bit. At worst I'll be back in a couple of hours to finally finish this part.
Finally back. From this point on it's basically gonna be one long cutscene for a good while. I'll probably just finish that up, then end for tonight.So, we're moving along, when suddenly... yep, it's gotta be.
And it's not looking too friendly.
More show up.
What did SLAVE mean by this?
KALIVA and uWu attempt to escape, but it looks like they managed to surround us. Guess there's no choice but to fight.
SLAVE and KALIVA begin casting spells, but someone intervenes.
This Yura guy, presumably their leader, begins to trade autism beams with SLAVE, as appears to be their custom if our previous encounters with Tritoch are any indication.
>he doesn't know
After some more autism interchange, it seems they come to an understanding.
Anyway, the Espers chill out after sensing SLAVE's familiar power. They explain that they are not allowed to visit the human world, but they still wanted to do something about their kidnapped friends. It just so happened that they were gathering near the gate to discuss the matter when SLAVE beckoned them.
Think that one would hold up in court?
Nah, your approach was quite moderate.TID
Wasn't that due to an existential crisis? Not really the same thing if you ask me.
Anyway, apparently pure Espers don't do all that well in the human world, but SLAVE somehow can. Whatever. In any case, they're sorry. Real sorry. Truly sorry.
The olive branch is extended. The Espers have their doubt that they would be so easily forgiven, but evidently they accept. Time to head back to Thamasa and present the Espers to General Leo.
Leo, for one, is delighted at this turn of events. The objective has actually been achieved! Peace is within grasp.
Yura profusely apologizes, but Leo counters with an apology of his own. This all nearly culminated in history repeating itself, but it appears catastrophe has been averted.
HUNTER is ready to celebrate. And who better to do it with than Runie?
Looks like they're ready to put their mistakes behind them. Time to start anew.
kek, what the FUCK did she mean by this?
Whatever she was implying embarrasses HUNTER and Runie, and everyone breaks out in laughter. Oh, uWu! You lovable scamp! This could not be a more fitting end to a long journey.
Until that familiar, maniacal laughter resounds throughout Thamasa, that is. The mad clown decides to crash the party YET AGAIN. Because we absolutely cannot have nice things in this world.
And he's brought the heavy artillery with him. Well shit, I didn't see this coming.
His Magitek troopers decimate the whole party effortlessly, including their fellow soldiers. Leo, of course, has no idea what the fuck is going on. It seems he, too, was deceived.
And the veil is lifted. This whole thing was about Magicite. Get the Espers to come out, so that they could be killed and their power harnessed. And everyone willingly stepped into this ruse.
Apparently Kefka has developed some new ability or spell that allows him to insta-kill Espers and turn them into Magicite. Yura is the first to go.
The others with him quickly fall as well. How DID Kefka obtain this power? It's never explained. And frankly, it's pretty absurd. I'd even go so far as to call it an asspull, ESPECIALLY considering what's about to happen next.
Kefka does what he does best: destroy, destroy, destroy!
Leo pleads with Kefka to stop (as if that would EVER work) before eating a Magitek beam himself.
A short while later, Leo wakes up, and we can control him!
We can even check his stats and everything. He's got a hell of an ugly mug, though. Not what I would've expected.
He's got some ace equipment, too. Well, the helmet and armor are meh, and his Crystal sword is just alright, but he's got the mighty Aegis Shield, which bestows great defenses along with 40% MBlock. And he has an Offering, which allows him to strike four times (albeit at half damage, so in reality it only doubles your damage output). This is shit we're not going to see for a good while still.
Anyway, we can walk around, but there's not much to do. If you try to leave, the Magitek Troopers are posted at each of the exits.
And it turns out they're all riding fucking Guardians. And just as before, they're completely invincible. We can do nothing here but run.
Guess that leaves us with pushing Kefka's shit in. Let's do it.
Leo's special skill is Shock, a Magical non-elemental multi-target attack with a whopping 128 spell power, slightly greater than even level 3 spells like Ice 3. And it fucking rocks. Everything from the animation to the sound effect is metal as fuck. This attack is pretty much the whole reason Leo was coveted by just about everyone who's ever played this game. There is a way to use it later on, though.
Kefka is... strangely weak. He only throws very weak attacks and spells at you, like Poison. A couple of Shocks thrown his way, and he seemingly disappears.
You know shit's about to get rough when your zany clown starts talking like a capeshit supervillain.
Even more so when what's supposed to be the top General in the Imperial forces is being completely toyed with.
Letter by letter, Kefka... summons the Emperor, as if through an incantation of some sort.
And just like that, the Emperor appears. Leo doesn't question it and immediately kneels for his liege. Perhaps he has a reason for this madness.
Or it's just the reason anyone not blinded by undying loyalty and duty could've guessed.
Leo appears confused, like he's having a crisis. What has he been fighting for all along? The Emperor bids him silence.
Kefka, from the shadows, chimes in.
He finally comes out and asks. Truthfully, this is a question he ought to have asked long, long before.
Ruh-roh.
And the mask comes off. Of course, it was Kefka all along, though no doubt the real Emperor's thoughts are not very far off from what was portrayed by Kefka's little theater here.
Well, that explains that.
He's enjoying every second of this. But it looks like he wants to wrap things up.
Even at his best, Leo is helpless. Kefka's so far beyond him now it's ridiculous.
Defiant to the end.
But playtime is over.
And so ends General Leo. Not with a bang, but a brutal, suffocated whimper.
Suddenly, terrible energies approach! Even Kefka's caught off guard by this.
And yet, he appears more excited than scared, unlike the last time this happened.
Meanwhile, at the Sealed Gate...
The gate blows wide open!
It appears the other Espers in the Esper Realm somehow caught wind of what was happening in the human realm, perhaps sensing the loss of their friends. They take the initiative, and re-open the gate themselves. They're going to help!
They make a beeline for Thamasa. And they're NOT fucking around. Knowing what the previous Espers did to Vector, they're going to FUCK some shit up.
And yet, Kefka is laughing. A whole army of Espers is descending upon him and only him, and he's laughing.
He's not even taking them seriously. Has his power grown THAT much?
He even mocks them and their dead friends for good measure.
Because that's a thing he can do now. Fuck's sake, talk about power creep.
Apparently that move was so powerful it even evaporated his Magitek Troopers.
One by one, he starts one-shotting them into Magicite, same as before.
One dares approach him head-on. Kefka accepts the challenge. This is probably one of his most stone-cold lines. Pure focus on the victim at hand.
This Ifrit-looking motherfucker tries every Fire spell in the book. They're all blocked, the equivalent of wet farts thrown in his direction. This is, of course, because Kefka here is equipped with a Paladin Shield, which gives him lots of MBlock and complete elemental immunity.
The Espers, too, are no longer a match for Kefka. Not individually, not as a group.
And here we get a hint that Kefka may have some ambition beyond just serving his Emperor.
Anyway, this Esper, too, falls, and becomes another Magicite to be added to Kefka's collection.
Time to get serious, I guess.
FUARK
And just like that, Kefka SOLOS a whole troupe of Espers without breaking a sweat. Fucking BEAST.I'm not gonna lie, this scene has always left me with a whole ton of questions, like, was Kefka always THIS powerful and he was just holding back? If not, when did he obtain such absurd power to the point that Espers are nothing but trash to him? After he learned about Magicite, maybe? But then, why was he scared of them at the Sealed Gate? And why didn't he turn them into Magicite right then and there, or when they attacked Vector, assuming he was there? Did he develop this power in the VERY short amount of time between his incarceration and his show in Thamasa? I know I'm giving it like ten times more thought than the writers did, since they just wanted a scene where Kefka came and fucked everyone's shit up raw and left the heroes at their lowest point yet, but I still think it's an asspull. Still, it's effective, if only because it establishes Kefka as more than just an occasionally murderous nuisance, but as someone who is actually competent through his madness AND more than willing to directly get his hands dirty and do everything himself.
But still, despite obtaining so much Magicite, there is something he desires beyond that.
Apparently Kefka decided we weren't worth being finished off. Some time passes, and General Leo has been given a burial and a monument to his name. SLAVE can only mourn.
Interceptor finds us. He's wounded, and PACMAN is nowhere to be seen. The party concludes the Empire got to him as well.
I bet they're fine m8. Probably chilling, playing slots at SIMP's casino or something.
See?
In other news, water is wet, Samus is a grill, and PEDO is about to hit on a little girl.
Oh, THIS I gotta hear.
So the tea girl knows all about the Emperor's plans. Shit even General Leo had no clue about.Still, unfathomably based.
Sabin, the resident volcel, mocks him for it. You got out alive, didn't you?
HUNTER delivers the bad news. I like that SOOGA is the one most devastated by the news.
KALIVA offers to come along. It's probably personal now.
Come on, KALIVA, everyone knows a party's not a party without a token loli!
TRAIN pokes fun at the thought of this shrimp joining them in their struggle, but she has a mouth that's disproportionate in size.
FUCKING DO IT FAGGOT
KALIVA relents yet again. He's kind of a pushover, ain't he?
...out of 10!
He refuses to elaborate.
The King lives up to his name.
We take control of the party outside Thamasa. Going back in, we notice that several NPCs are missing. The Mayor confirms what we're dreading.
We also find this weird nigga with a weirder name.
KALIVA, however, recognizes him immediately.
They appear to have a past, one involving a creature named Hidon.
KALIVA seems VERY self-conscious about this. Evidently, this creature was very elusive, and KALIVA gave up on finding it. Gungho has, as a result, lost all respect for KALIVA.
Interceptor is here as well. This will likely be his new home.
Anyway, nothing else to do but board the Blackjack. It is now that we hear what the Emperor is truly after.
And if KALIVA's outburst is anything to go by, it is the worst possible thing.
Indeed, it looks like in their effort to help us, the Espers inadvertently helped doom us all.
And now, something cataclysmic may be about to happen. Anything involving the Statues is sure to be.
And from the looks of it, it has to do with the continent where the Esper Realm is.
The earth begins to tear itself asunder. Something HUGE is happening, unprecedented, even.
A shadow is cast over towns the world over. Whatever this is, it's big.
And indeed it is. Judging from the shape, the continent east of Vector, the continent housing the Esper Realm, has taken flight into the sky. How is this possible? Why has this happened?
The power of the Statues, activated by Ghestal, is the most likely culprit. Only they would have the might to make such an impossible thing happen.
We were already helpless before Kefka's newfound prowess. Can we really stand up to the power of the Statues harnessed by the Emperor on top of that?
A callback to the lore we read beforehand.
This, however, we didn't hear.
Now THAT's fucked. Looks like the stakes are literally sky-high.
And so we finally end this loooooooooooong segment, mostly filled with tons of cutscenes with lots of exposition, drama, and tragedy. The next step is to go to this Floating Continent, where Kefka and Ghestal are trying to harness the power of the Statues to conquer the world or whatever. There's a few things I gotta take care of before we take this step, however. I will, of course, stop here for now, and leave that for tomorrow, when we'll decide who, exactly, will go on this mission to save the world from a potential apocalypse.
>>11053842>>11053843>>11053847Even in moments like this, the king can't help himself. At least he knows his priorities.
>>11052331
OP here. Seems this thread hit autosage. I'll wait until it slides off, then start a new one.
