It's time for another Final Fantasy playthrough topic, with two games in one this time!
I'd somehow gone my entire life without playing a Final Fantasy game until 2016, when I tried Final Fantasy XIII. I loved it, and I've been working through the rest of the series ever since. I've also had a playthrough topic for every FF I've played, and having others follow along has always enhanced the experience. I'm going to keep that tradition alive as I work through the rest of the series this year! These two are older games but I'm excited to see where they end up in my overall ranking, which currently sits as follows:
XIII > X-2 > LR > VI > WoFF > IX > VIII > X > BD >>> XIII-2
Also, while I'm not sure if these old games even have characters with enough depth to crack my top ten, here's my current top ten FF characters:
Lightning > Yuna > Dagger > Terra > Agnes > Cyan > Eiko > Lumina > Rinoa > Squall
I also want to mention that, while I've never played FFI, I
have
seen the FFI rap by Duane and BrandO so I imagine I've spoiled myself entirely. Let's get started!
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In a world where the wind is dying, earth is decaying, and the seas are raging, four heroes are prophesied to fight back against the encroaching darkness. They've appeared in the Kingdom of Cornelia, each holding a crystal that marks them as a hero of light. Their names are:
Ward, the warrior!
Reid, the red mage!
Witt, the white mage!
and Beck, the black mage!
The four meet the king, who is happy to see the warriors of legend arrive... but he's also skeptical, and sends them on a quest to prove their worth. They need to rescue the princess, Sarah, from the evil knight Garland. The heroes bought a few spells, some equipment upgrades, and then set out into the world.
This early part of the game was easily the most difficult so far. Regular enemies were legitimate threats, plus at one point after two people died I fled back to town, used my last bit of money to stay at the inn... and it didn't even resurrect them! I had to go back out with just two people and brave a bunch more battles to earn enough money to pay for a visit to the priest and another stay at the inn. I spent about an hour slowly grinding, though, and by the time I made it to the Chaos Shrine in the north my heroes finally lived up to their legend.
I found Garland in a room filled with bats (seriously what's the deal with these bats, I've found them in a bunch of different places and they just keep shouting 'Kee!' at me). He tried to knock the heroes down, but they knocked him down instead and rescued the princess. Having proven their worth to the king, he fixed up a bridge to the next area and the adventure continued.
Now that my goal was exploration rather than grinding, I want to say that the encounter rate in this game is insane. There were a few stretches where I'd get into a battle every step I took! Still, I guess leveling up is a good thing. My first discovery while wandering the continent was a blind woman named Matoya, who had lost the crystal eye that allowed her to see. Since she'd never be able to ID them, the heroes took this opportunity to steal things from her treasure chests. Next they found a town and beat up some pirates, getting a boat.
With the boat, the heroes traveled the seas, finding a dwarf community in a cave. These guys say 'Lali-hoo' so I'm pretty sure they're alternate-dimension relatives of those lovable dwarfs in FFIX. A dwarf here needed nitro powder, so I made a mental note of that too. Next up I found an elf city (where I massively improved both my spells and my gear). The prince here was cursed and needed Matoya's help to be cured. This was also the moment I realized I'd been stumbling across bits and pieces of a long fetch quest.