Fantasy changed to steam punk.
So finally got around to the last part of the classic Final Fantasy-games. They even released the pixel remaster during the meantime. So that means another round if they get released on Switch. By some seen as the best Final Fantasy and is at least top 3 or so for most people. When I got the classic Final Fantasy games for Christmas in the early 2000's this was the first game I tried since it was seen as the best one by the gaming magazines I read. It begins with Terra Branford, a brainwashed magic user in a world where magic disappeared 1 000 years ago during the war of the magi. She is sent to Narshe, a mining village where reports is about an Esper, a magical creature that the Gesthalian empire is looking for. Terra together with her guards Biggs and Wedge fights their way through the coal mines and soldiers until they reach the Esper that obliterates Biggs and Wedge and releases Terra from the slave crown that was used to control her. Terra awakens in a house belonging to Avis, a supporter of the Returners, a rebel group that fights the empire. The Narshen guards are her so she tries to escape through the mines, but after falling through the floor she passes out again.
Meanwhile Avis have called in Locke Cole, an adventurer that work as a contact with the Returners. He finds Terra and together with some moogles fight of the Narsheans and heads for Figaro Castle where they team up with its king, Edgar Figaro. He helps them escape from one of the generals of the empires, Kefka, an insane magitek knight clown who tries to burn down the castle to find Terra. During an escape past the mountains they meet Sabin, Edgar's brother who left the kingdom and trained as a monk to fight the empire to avenge the death of their father by the hand of the empire. They meet Baron, the leader of the Returners that ask for Terra's help to communicate with the Esper so that it will help them stop the empire that is on the verge on reenacting the war of the magi that nearly destroyed the world. But the Empire strikes by attacking South Figaro, a town they passed through and closing in on the Returners hideout in the mountain. Locke leaves to stop the Empire behinds enemy lines in South Figaro. The other travels with Baron on a raft through a river to get back to Narshe, but during a fight with an octopus Sabin is thrown away. Edgar, Baron and Terra heads back to Narshe and to Avis house. Locke discovers another of the Empires generals, Celes Chere, the second magitek knight that have been imprisoned as a traitor due to objecting to the war. Locke rescues her and both gets on to Narshe. Sabin meanwhile wash up near the Castle of Doma that is under attack by the Empire. Together with Shadow, a mercenary assassin they infiltrate the camp and witness Kefka sending away the other commanding general, Leo and goes on to poison the river and killing off all in the kingdom. One of the survivors are Cyan Garamonde, a knight of the kingdom of Doma, but both his king and wife and son perish. In rage he fights his way through the camp and is helped by Shadow and Sabin as they escape through a forest where they hitch a ride on the phantom train that transports the recently deceased to the other side. After getting away Cyan sees his family as they board and travels to the realm of the dead... it's damn heartbreaking.
ELEINE! OWEIN!
Shadow leaves them as Sabin and Cyan jumps into another river to get to the Veldt where they meet the beast boy Gau that was raised by monsters. He gives them a diving helmet that they uses to travel through the ocean current and then hitch a ride on a ferry back to Narshe. Everyone gathered the Empire under Kefka attacks again so you have to fight off the invading forces until Kefka flees again. Meeting with the Esper Terra has a reaction, turns into an Esper herself and flies away. The others regroup, take Figaro Castle to the Western continent and follows Terra's trail to Zozo, the city of thieves. She lies in a coma, guarded by Ramuh, another Esper. He asks them to rescue Espers from the imperial magitek factory in Vector, the captial of the Empire and afterwards give them three magicites, the remains of Espers that can tech people magic, and then he passes away and turns to magicite himself. The Returners decide to travel to the opera after news that the worlds only airship captain is about to abduct the opera star Maria, that looks like Celes. After some hijinx they get aboard the Blackjack, Setzer Gabbiani's airship. After some trickery he agrees to take them to Vector. They infiltrate the factory and can only get the magicites from the Esper, one being Maduin, Terra's father. During the escape Kefka confronts them again and insinuates that Celes is a spy so she uses her power to get rid of Kefka for a while so that the Returners can take a cart ride from Cid, the engineer behind the magitek. They return and awaken Terra and infiltrates an imperial camp that hides the portal to the Esper world. Kefka finds them yet again, but is stopped by the Espers that comes through the portal and wrecks the capital. Emperor Gesthal declares a cease-fire since the Espers threatens the whole world. Terra and Locke heads for Thamasa with Shadow, Celes and Leo. They meet Strago Magus, a blue mage and descendent from the magi knights that fought int the war of the magi. Together with his granddaughter Relm Arrowny they climb the holy mountain and learns about the statues of the gods that caused the war of the magi by creating the Espers and turning themselves to stone to stop the war. They meet the Espers and take them to general Leo to negotiate the end of the war, but Kefka shows up since the Emperor have betrayed them all. Kefka turns the Espers to magicite, which unleashes even more Espers from the portal that Kefka captures. He kills general Leo and together with the Emperor enters the portal in search of the statues of the gods.
Everyone talks about Aerith, but this came as a shock first time playing.
The emperor and Kefka flies to the sky with the island so the Returners land on the floating continent and fights their way to the statues. But they are too late as Kefka kills the emperor and move the statues out of alignment causing untold havoc on the earth. The Returners jumps on to the Blackjack, but as it tries to avoid the destruction it breaks in two and the cataclysm is a fact. All goes black and one year later Celes wakes up from her coma on an island together with Cid. Here starts a little mini-game where you need to feed fish to Cid as he gets sick and depending on which fish you give him he will either live or die. Usually he dies, but this time I actually got him to live, he gives Celes a raft he have built in the meantime so that she can sail to land in order to find her friends and stop Kefka. Cid dying is actually emotionally better since she then tries to commit suicide by jumping from a cliff, but wash up on the shore again, but a bird fly by with Locke's scarf, giving her hope that the others are alive and then she finds the raft.
Back at the main land she finds Sabin saving a kid from a house that have been struck by the Light of Judgment that Kefka controls from his tower on the ruins of Vector. They travel to a town with kids where Terra resides, protecting the orphaned children. Unable to fight she sends them away. They meet Edgar in another town in disguise as he gets escaped convicts from Figaro Castle to lead him to the castle that have been stuck under the desert. They meet Setzer that tells them about this other airship in a tomb to his old friend Daryl, they get it and the hunt for the others are on. A pigeon leads them to Zozo and Cyan as he impersonates a dead soldier so that his girlfriend wont lose hope. They find Gau training in the Veldt, in a cave there they find Shadow who after being nursed back heads for the colosseum where they have to fight him to join them. Relm is trying to exorcist a painting and Strago joined the Cult of Kefka when he thought Relm was dead. Terra finds her fighting spirit as she protects the children from a demon released by the cataclysm. Locke is found getting the magicite Phoenix in order to give life back to his old girlfriend Rachel that was killed by the Empire, but it's too old, but she absolves his guilt during the small moment she is brought back to life. Mog just hangs around Narshe and then you can also recruit Gogo, the mimic from Final Fantasy V and Umaro, the yeti of Narshe. Getting more magicites, train some spells and levels and then you climb the tower and fight Kefka. The tower collapses and magic disappears. Shadow stays behind in the tower, laying his guilt over leaving his old friend to die behind while Terra leads the others out and looses her Esper form. Credits roll and lives return to the shattered world.
The end!
First time finishing it on the Playstation. Took me 60 hours, levels ranging between 36-46, compared to my GBA-save where I got to level 60. So how did I achieve this? Well, I could probably have cut something like 30-40 hours by not grinding at all. I learned that you don't get stat increases besides HP and MP from levels unless you have specific Espers equipped. Meaning best time to grind is at earliest after the magitek factory, but probably recommended in the world of ruin. How do you get around this? Fights in the Veldt doesn't give any EXP, but money and magic points to level up spells, so I grinded some 10 hours to get every character most of the spells before the floating continent. Maybe wished I grinded at the Cultist Towers instead, 5-10 magic points goes a lot faster. Overall a great experience. Graphics are nice, music is fantastic and the story is really good. Well, up until you got the characters back in the world of ruin. Very little character story is shown since it's pretty much open world and your choice on people you want to gather, although a minimum of 12 is recommended to get 3 full parties so tackle Kefka's Tower. I have it for GBA, Wii Virtual Console and the SNES Mini so I got other version to try if I get the itch to play again.
