Like I've said before, August is my busiest month of the year. That is no excuse for such a long absence though, my dear readers. Moving forward I promise at least two posts a month, looking to maintain at one a week for the future.
When last I left you, my dear readers, Benjamin had beaten the dual-headed dragon/hydra of the volcano, and freed the crystal of fire. The world map is divided into four quadrants, and I had explored three, so I had a good feeling I knew where I was going next.
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| As I usually do, I'd been playing it conservative with the expendable seeds. Turns out they weren't as rare as I thought. |
The next quest indeed involved the last remaining quarter of the map, where the town of "Windia" was located. (Windia... Windy... Air Crystal? Yeah, I know you get it...) The quest for the Crystal of Air began with a fair amount of character swapping. First, Reuben is knocked off a rope bridge, then Tristan joins for a bit. Benjamin and Tristan head through a forest, only to be stopped at a large tree.
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| Benjamin could probably use a little help in the diplomacy department. |
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| Hehe... heh. |
Having been trumped by the tree, the pair travel to find Kaeli, who can talk to trees. Kaeli is still recovering however, then some stuff happens, Tristan ends up going treasure hunting with Spencer (Phoebe's grandfather?) but leaves Ben with the Dragon Claw. Kaeli is concerned about her father, Captain Mac.
The plot in FF:MQ is neither complicated, nor are the characters, but it can be a little hard to keep things straight because the dialogue moves so fast. Plot movement and revelations usually happen one or two sentences at a time. There isn't much time or motivation to get invested in the characters either, but hell, I don't think that's what they were going for. MQ is entirely meant to be what it is, a simple introduction to the role-playing genre.
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| Just as I was starting to think that Tristan was an irredeemable douchebag, he left Ben with the Dragon Claw. Found as a treasure in the first dungeon and taken by Tristan, it allows the player to latch on to far away targets and pull the character across gaps. |
The master tree was another huge dungeon, as seems to be the norm after the first area in the game. The monster fights got pretty repetitive, but few RPGs have that one figured out, so I can't hate too much.
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| In Windia, Ben can use the Dragon Claw to travel between twigs here and get to a Final Fantasy easter egg. |
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| There aren't any other Chocobos in this game, so it ties the game to the universe, see? It's all very exciting, I'm sure. |
While it is possible to get through the game by "mashing the A button" and attacking, it is more interesting to try to figure out the enemy's various weaknesses and exploit them. Knowing the weaknesses also makes defeating the monsters more efficient, which in turn, lowers the chances that the party will fall victim to a frustrating total party status effect lock out, or TPSELO (Pronounced "Tip-se-low"). TPSELOs are definitely the low-point of playing this game. Generally you are pretty safe to experiment, however, some creatures can reflect your spells! I found this mostly happening with the slime type creatures.
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| "Sir! Their shields are up!": Metal slimes punish me for attempting to make the game more interesting. |
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| Do I even need to caption this one? |
Don't take me for a fan of the Backstreet Boys, but their videos are
larger than life.
Mount Gale
I don't remember how exactly, (I'll take better notes in the future) but the team of Ben and Kaeli reason that it is possible that whoever is controlling the Crystal of Air (or Wind, not sure) is to the East of Windia, on the nearby Mount Gale. Mount Gale was a typical mountain area for the game, with the addition of the twigs I showed earlier that the Dragon Claw can be used to traverse over hazards.
I got stuck for quite awhile on this map, it turned out I was looking for the wrong thing. I saw some twigs, and assumed I needed to use the Dragon Claw, when in fact, it turned out I could jump over a pit to progress. I'm ashamed to say I wandered around for at least a half hour trying to figure out how to progress. Mystic Quest is not without it's challenges, at least for my dumb ass.
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| Sometimes areas like this are disguised cave entrances. It wasn't. |
Dullahan
The boss at the top of Mount Gale is Dullahan. The name comes from an evil spirit of Celtic/Irish mythology.
The dullahan, (pronounced DOOL-a-HAN), is a headless
rider, usually on a black horse who carries his or her own head under one arm. Usually the dullahan is male, but there are some female versions. The head and the mouth is usually in a hideous grin that touches both sides of the head. Its eyes are constantly moving about, and can see across the countryside even in the darkest nights. The flesh of the head is said to have the color and consistency of moldy cheese. The dullahan uses the spine of a human corpse for a whip, and its wagon
is adorned with funeral objects (e.g., candles in skulls to light the way, the spokes of the wheels are made from thigh bones
, the wagon's covering made from a worm-chewed pall
or dried human skin). When the dullahan stops riding, that is where a person is due to die. The dullahan calls out the person's name, at which point the person immediately perishes. (Source)
I'm sure you, like me, are familiar with the "headless horseman," however, did you know about using the spine of a human corpse for a whip? That's a whole new level of awesome.
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| I appreciate alternate interpretations of the familiar. I also love breasts... don't judge me! (NSFW Source) |
Dullahans make appearances in many Final Fantasy games, including 3, 6 (pictured below), 9, 12 and 14 (
Source). Oh... see the 3, 6, 9, 12 pattern? I have some theories about these patterns in FF games.
FF: MQ's Dullahan has taken being headless to the next level, also having a headless horse! What will they think of next? Some stimulating expositional dialogue takes place between Benjamin and the villain as they meet atop the windy peak of Mount Gale.
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| Brilliant! |
Benjamin and Kaeli defeated the horseman who was sans heads. If I remember correctly (once again... better notes next game) this stopped the wind, which allowed an engineer named Otto to use his machine which could create a rainbow bridge to Pazuzu's Tower.
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| Best to heed that head! |
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| The rainbow bridge. |
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| Here's an action shot of the heroes crossing the rainbow bridge, however, I don't think it's possible to do it with Reuben in game. This must be a post-world-saving frolic by two star-crossed lovers. |
Will the Knight of Legend succeed in deposing Pazuzu, up in his tower? Or will dark designs reign supreme, making this vision of a carefree future only a faded dream? Come back next time to find out!
The Future of the Gil System
The Gil system, much like the EU to Great Britain, has turned out to be more of a commitment than it is benefiting this blog. Therefore, I propose tossing it out, returning to the purity of a pre-economic system! Break the tyrannical chains of capitalism! I still want you, the esteemed readers, to be able to get me to play your favorite games though. Hype them up in the comments, and I'll get to them as soon as is reasonable with the flow of the blog.
