We don't always like being nonplussed

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Final Fantasy VI - Day 5 (As We Well Know, Bears Are Soulless Murderers)

Anyway, as expected, I have to fight Bangers... and he has fucking BEARS!

Vargas: so badass, the deadliest creature known to Stephen Colbert TANKS for him.

What the FUCK! They're remorseless killing machines! How is that fair?! Also, he's using them as SHIELDS! I can't even attack him. What the hell!? Who the hell uses bears as SHIELDS! That's... that's just a whole new level of bad ass, I don't even know what to call it! "Have you seen my new shields? They're BEARS, GET IN THEIR MOUTHS!" Why can't I get shit like this in Dragon Quest IX? Also, he can still attack me, even though I can't attack him. Oh joy.

And then suddenly in the middle of the battle... there's TALKING! This is a bad sign because I have no idea what they're saying. Suddenly, as if from nowhere it's:

All RIGHT! It's Sabin/Mash/Mimu5sa!
Bela Lugosi! Hey, remind me to kick you in the nuts later. Bear Man the Midboss (which sounds like a Gung-ho Gun) seems surprised to see him too... which isn't surprising since he's supposed to be dead.

Eh, I got better. There may or may not have been Dragon Balls involved.
We get knocked to the side like we don't matter, and Bela Lugosi steps up to take on Bear Man the Midboss... and I have a sinking feeling about where this is going. As they run their mouths, the peanut gallery in the back keeps whipping their heads around from person to person like they're watching a tennis match... although I feel I should point out that since these are 16 bit sprites, their heads don't turn, so much as they whole bodies... making this the most retarded marching drill EVER!

Apparently Bear Man the Midboss has really bad gas, because some nasty green wind just blew my party away, leaving only Bela Lugosi behind. Well, you're our only hope, dead B-movie actor! There's a lot more talking, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I need to do a Blitz... how do I know this? Because That Guy AND Flailthroughs and Co have looked at the screen in passing and said, "Oh, you'll need to do a Blitz." For the record... I've never used them, so... this should be fun! Here goes nothing.

I um... I seem to be doomed... by which I mean both because I have no fucking clue what I'm doing, and also because there's a counter over my head. FFFFFFFFFFFF-

After a couple false starts where I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, That Guy is kind enough to tell me you have to button mash BEFORE you select Mash. Useful information... I shall now never use Blitzes again.

After I destroy Bear Man the Midboss, Mash is reunited with his brother... and seems surprised to see an attractive woman in a bathing suit with him. Don't look at me, man, stranger things have happened, I'm sure. Locke seems surprised that there's two of Edgar, and probably says something to the effect of "Fuck there's TWO of him! We're DOOMED!" All I can say is lock up your wives, lock up your children, and lock up your husbands too. Meanwhile, Tina does not seem to get the concept of twins. Unsurprising, since her brain has just recently been scrambled by having her slave crown removed... and then some asshole jumped on her HEAD, so it's understandable.

And now, a five-minute powerup sequence while we check on the tertiary characters!
However, her innate power of pose inspiration seems to still be working, and Mash strikes a doozy. Or he's just constipated, who knows?

DAHAHAHAH That cracks me up every time. 'Tertiary.'
Either way, he seems to crack himself up, and I'm starting to wonder if he hasn't been hitting the Jesus Juice up here all alone in the mountains with the snot monsters and the Vegas. There's some more talking, Edgar runs his mouth, and looks sad, and then...

'Do you want me to do the Dance of Special Words?'
You know what? I think Mash should be the leader of the posing force I mentioned a while back. The twins then meet and have a noddy head moment, and then he joins the party. And every day is a little more wootful. I leave the cave and then... find ANOTHER cave! See previous comment about not liking caves and their labia. I scamper off to see if there's anywhere else to be, and find that there isn't. Shite. Also, just because it seems to amuse me, my levels are in descending numerical order from Mash to Tina, I don't know why it's funny to me, but it is. Moving right along, I get ready to head into the next cave.

It's kind of hard to say how much of a resemblence there really is between a pair of sprites.

Though Sabin clearly has his mother's pixels.
Actually, I'm starting to think that NEITHER of the Figaro boys are Bela Lugosi, since they both seem to favor the Not!Bela Lugosi stance... so... does that mean they're fakes of a fake? This is some serious metaphysical shit here... except, you know, where it isn't. Moving right along.

I finally give in once Edgar levels and head into the next cave. This one is not full of Vega, for which I'm grateful, and even the labia seem to be thin on the ground. I scrounge around for loot, and then head where the dude at the entrance dragged me. There we find an old guy who makes Tina feel bad. Geez guys, stop picking on her, the first eighteen years of her life were spent as a slave/lab experiment... and may I point out that she's only eighteen? (Seriously, look it up, Celes and Tina are eighteen... and all of the men are in their late twenties or early thirties. Props for the older male protagonists for a change, but then did you HAVE to get all creepy?) Locke scampers over to console her, while Edgar says something to the effect of, "Dude, I'm trying to hit that, stop being such a cockblock." Old guy seems to backpedal, but it's just a ruse and he says something shitty before sending us young'uns off to bed.

After a pleasant little nappy poo, I'm controlling Tina again, and... Locke has been in my room... Dude, were you... were you watching me sleep? That's kinda creepy. I speak to him, and then Tina feels bad apparently, and then I head off, loot the treasury, and then find Mash, unsurprisingly, in the bar. Because what's a resistance hideout without its own bar? Anyway, he seems to crack himself up, which really cements to me that he's going for the Drunken Master Prestige class...

Son of a BITCH! Did I just make a D&D joke in reference to Final Fantasy? Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit! That Guy is turning me into a dork!!!! I wasn't like this before! I swear! It's all HIS fault!

See, this is where I studiously DON'T mention the night we were sitting here trying to figure out what class each of the characters from FF7 would be in D&D, because that would make me sound REALLY dorky.

Anyway, I head out and talk to the old guy and he keeps asking me a question, which I don't know what it is, so I say no. After about the third time of this, I seem to trigger a cut scene, and some goon wanders in and dies, and Locke and Edgar flip their shit. Oops? Locke runs off, Edgar and Tina have a noddy head exchange and then some goon gives me something. I find out that this is actually the Genji Glove... how do I find this out? I equipped Mash with relics now that Locke's leaving left me with some spares, and it optimized his equipment so he's dual wielding. Awesome... now I just need an Offering and I'm golden.

Also since Locke left, I now have old guy in my party, or as I shall call him, Cowardly Lion:

But I think I'll call him Alan Moore. -Ed.
See? Anyway, I zoom along with my Sprint Shoes, and end up on a raft. Crap... I'm pretty sure there's a specific path I'm supposed to take here, but I derp. This should be fun...

Well so far Edgar has been blinded, and I can't access the menu... which means I'll have to use an item in battle to remove it... and it won't bother to tell me if I can't use the item on someone because they don't need it... awesome. By some miracle, at the first split in the path I head the right way... I think, because I find somewhere to hop off, use items and save. Woot. After that, it's back out on the river, and back to fighting rampant nose hair and scorpion crabs:

I never took a close look at the bulk of the random autocrossbow-fodder sprites- they are UGLY.
I need some tweezers and some lice shampoo here people. Also, the nose hairs? They shoot snot in your eyes... and by snot I mean ink... either way Edgar's blinded again, and I seem to have gone the wrong way because that was one big circle. Since I need to level a bit I don't think it's TOO much of a loss, but I don't need to raft around in circles, raft around in circles, raft around in...

I take the other path, and end up in a cave with another save point, and accidentally find which of my items is a tent... not that I'll remember. For those of you who haven't played FF6 (and honestly, I only know of ONE person that hasn't... no wait, strike that, two, the other one just doesn't read this site) at the first fork you go left, and then at the second you go right. Got it? Good. Back onto Old Man River. Then suddenly, as if from nowhere...

And the comic relief arrives.
A healslime! Oh wait... Final Fantasy, not Dragon Quest. I guess that means he's just a normal squid then... But wait!

It's a shame you don't get to name Ultros/Orthros- I'd like to see how that turned out.
He's not just a NORMAL squid! He's the KING OF SQUIDS! And he has REALLY bad teeth. FEAR HIM!!!! In any case, I defeat him, and then everyone looks around and tries to figure out what the fuck just happened. Tina seems to fall to her knees for some reason, likely scared to death by the possibility of tentacle rape, and Mash strikes another pose and bounces a bit... You know this game is a lot FUNNIER when you have no idea what's going on. Edgar then tells him to stop being a douche rocket, and then... I dunno Mash jumps, or Edgar pushes him or something, but either way, our drunken monk falls in the drink... and then is apparently fired out of a cannon? Or perhaps he channeled his inner salmon. Either way, we're out of Mash, so we'll have to substitute with coleslaw... Yes that's right, ladies and gentlemen, the food puns just keep coming. Run while you still have the chance.

Afterward we get to watch as Mash floats away on his head while Edgar and crew go the other way. This brings us to a save screen with all of the characters split up into separate groups, which tells me it's time to start on another group's story... this also tells me that now is a good time to call it for today, and tomorrow we will start with either Locke, or Mash's side story, I don't remember which. Tune in tomorrow to find out!

2 comments:

  1. I used to get annoyed with the nautiloids (green squid with a conch)because it used to shoot ink at my characters making them blind!

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  2. Blind is such a pain in just about any game that uses it. But the worst part is, I found out recently that there's a bug with the effect on the SNES/Super Famicom version of FF6, and it doesn't change your chances to hit at all. So the only thing characters get out of the Blind condition is a pair of sunglasses.

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