Next chapter, just in time before the next chapter kicks off
Conde Petie again
I love the exchange between Zidane and Garnet in the marriage scene, brilliantly done and very funny. I didn’t marry Quina and Vivi this time though, I’ve done it before and it is quite funny but for all story canon purposes, I didn’t chose it because the two of them marrying is just plain bizarre!
Eiko:
I love her as a character, her crush on Zidane is so cute, she’s very mature for her age but also acts at times like a typical six year old which is endearing about her but I also feel sorry for her. Living on her own after her granddad died apart from having the moogles at such a young age and having no human contact really must be really tough and she really must be lonely and as Zidane rightly says, she puts on a brave face. You have to admire her for it though, there aren’t many kids her age who would be able to cope with that at all, sure it’s not exactly realistic but her this is Final Fantasy after all
As for Eiko in Battle, while her summoning pool might not be as big as Garnet’s I love that she’s given the ability to change the effect of her summons depending on the gem you equip to her and the fact that she’s the only character to be able to unconditionally use Holy in the game works for me!
Hilgigars
What a total bastard this boss is in terms of stealing items. I’ve never once in the entire time I’ve played FFIX EVER been able to steal the Fairy Flute, so I thought I’d have a go at it this time. Not once in the time I spent on this boss (nearly 45 minutes) before I lost all sense of reasoning and patience with the steal command and AI of this monster was I able to steal the Fairy Flute, it is unbelievable difficult to steal even with my character’s on good levelling. The Mythril Fork and Phoenix Down, no trouble but the Fairy Flute…honestly this is the only battle in FFIX where I feel it’s fixed so you can’t steal it or the success rate is something like 1% because even with the bandit ability equipped which is supposed to help Zidane steal better items there was no joy. In the end I got fed up, had Dagger and Vivi hitting trance and just let loose with them to convey my rage.
After battling, I went and did that little mini quest to gain a moonstone. I believe if you don’t manage to get the moonstone off Brahne in the beginning of the game, this is the next time you’re able to actually get one of these but it is handy for synthesising a Pearl Rouge later on so better to have more than one anyway.
Madain Sari
Did I put the Oglop in the cooking? Nope, but I always before this little bit correctly anyway so that the conversation lasts longer. I know from previous playthroughs that if you don’t do the cooking ATE correctly then you don’t get the best conversation.
Zidane and Vivi peeing outside at night
It’s one of these kind of scenes that always seems to crop up in every FF that makes you go….did that just really happen?
So Garnet’s past is finally revealed here and also there’s some lovely scenes between Zidane and Garnet too. The thing I love about Zidane and Garnet’s relationship is that it’s done so well, it just becomes stronger throughout the game and yet it doesn’t take centre stage like Squall and Rinoa’s did in FFVIII
Amarant
It’s times like these I wish they’d made Blank or Marcus a main character, at least they’re more entertaining and actually have some personality. I get that Amarant is there to act as almost a counter balance to Zidane’s personality, but honestly he is the single most uninteresting and annoying character in the game. He’s not bad in battle but that’s the only thing that prevents me from totally writing him off as a character
Iifa Tree
So in the opening area I always wondered and it’s probably something along those lines but I wonder if the reason Garnet couldn’t hear Carbuncle was because it was directly communicating with Eiko, or because she has no horn has she lost some of the abiity to telepathically communicate with the Eidolons. I know she’s able to unseal Leviathan and talk to Ramuh, although the whole group does that but it’s never exactly mentioned that Garnet was ever able to communicate with her Eidolons before they were extracted from her only that she feared them and had thought about killing them which is an interesting point in itself.
We’ve already seen in the game that extraction as process of forcibly removing Eidolons from their master could kill the summoner, and we’ve also seen that those who aren’t born as summoners can use the Eidolon’s power temporarily through gems and Dark Matter, so what would happen if Garnet tried to kill her Eidolons when they’re fully connected to her, would it harm her too, or would she be able to extract them herself and destroy them or do it through summoning, I just always wondered how would she kill her Eidolons exactly.
The Iifa Tree itself, a beautiful, haunting location and interesting as the prime source of Mist. It’s also finally interesting to get a general picture of what the Mist in the Mist Continent is actually there for.
Vivi shows a lot of bravery in this chapter by choosing to destroy the Soul Cage and ultimately prevent the birth of any more Black Mages, must have been a hard decision considering the Black Mages are the only others of Vivi’s kind he knows and the fact he chooses for the Mist to stop, essentially wipes them out as a race for the future.
Soul Cage
Without a doubt the easiest boss to face…unless of course you want to steal his items, then it becomes a little more complicated. The items of course aren’t exactly difficult to steal considering all of them are obtainable before the actual battle, I decided not to steal as I had them all and ended the battle immediately with a Life Spell.
The final events of disc 2
SO first of all I’m guessing the Brahne just got greedy and Kuja just got bored of playing nice with her now that Garnet’s Eidolons have been extracted. I dunno again it’s never fully explained what happened to make them go against one another, great insults though. Kuja’s true nature finally being revealed makes you realise just how dangerous he is and the fact that he turns Bahamut against Brahne is definitely a turning point on how he is perceived as a character. It’s sad that it took Brahne in her final moments to come to her senses and become the person Garnet remembers her as again, I think what’s also moving about the scene is you see how Vivi feels during it and what he feels about death again.
The final FMV gets me every time and the accompanying music track to it is just so beautiful and sad. The FMV is really short but I’ve never known an FMV to convey in the game more about how one character feels apart from the cargo ship FMV for Vivi. You just get a full sense of Garnet’s grief about her mother’s death and her fears and doubts about ruling Alexandria on her own, it makes you realise just how much weight she has to carry as the new Queen.
Those frogs were hard to catch.
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I don't suppose you lot fancy taking a break for a week, now that you've reached the half way point? No? Alright, carry on then...
