At this point, we’re ready to go and beat Final Fantasy I! But we’re not going to do that just yet… not when there are endgame dungeons to challenge!
Today we begin with a return to the Earthgift Shrine, which we paid a somewhat premature visit to back in episode 9, and manage to squeeze in two whole runs to take down both Cerberus and Echidna.
This is just the beginning of endgame Final Fantasy… so strap in for a bit of an endurance run!
After successfully making takoyaki out of Kraken last time around, there’s just one more crystal for the Warriors of Light to, err, light.
It’s not going to be easy to get to, however; it’s guarded by the fearsome Tiamat, who has taken up residence in the Flying Fortress, the former home of the Lufenian people. And, what with the Flying Fortress being… flying, even reaching Tiamat is going to be a bit of an ordeal.
Thankfully, all the things the Warriors of Light have done up until this point have prepared them adequately for this moment… so it seems the only way is up. Baby.
After last week’s unfortunate adventure in the Earthgift Shrine, the Warriors of Light do their best to get back on track.
However, it’s not quite that simple! Their next destination is concealed in the heart of a complicated labyrinth of rivers and streams… and it turns out that they perhaps weren’t even heading in the right direction in the first place.
Oh well. Those are the perils you sign up for when you take on a less linear RPG!
In today’s episode, the Warriors of Light score their first major victory over the Four Fiends and cleanse the Cavern of Earth once and for all.
The fact that this part of the game makes you seek out the advice of an inconveniently located sage then re-run a dungeon in a different context was something pretty distinctive at the time of original release; an audience of players more accustomed to linear “straight line to the finish” games may well have found themselves surprised and baffled when they discovered what was necessary in order for them to progress.
We now know that to be the nature of RPGs, of course; but someone had to define and codify the conventions we take for granted today, didn’t they?
Last time, the Warriors of Light decided to take a well-earned holiday in the town of Melmond, only to discover it was a right shithole.
It (apparently) wasn’t the fault of the people of Melmond, however; the nasty vampire who had taken up residence in the Cavern of Earth was supposedly to blame, because he was blocking the flow of earth energy from the crystal and making everything rot. And this made all the buildings fall down, supposedly.
Motivated entirely by altruism (well, maybe a bit of greed… treasures are shiny!), the Warriors of Light descend into the Cavern of Earth to try and deal with this undead terror once and for all…
In this sixth episode of the Final Fantasy Marathon, we take our legitimately gotten gains (courtesy of the Mystic Key) and take a trip to go and visit the dwarves.
Dwarves are another example of an aspect of Final Fantasy that was lifted from Dungeons & Dragons, though few can deny that the Japanese series puts its own unique twist on the dumpy delvers. Their catchphrase of “lali-ho!” (or variations thereof depending on who was on localisation duty at Squaresoft that week) became a recurring feature for a number of installments… and indeed at the time of writing the dwarves have most recently made a comeback in fanservice festival Final Fantasy XIV as part of the Shadowbringers expansion.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. I’ve got some Nitro Powder burning a hole in my pocket (quite literally) and I can’t think of anyone better equipped to make good use of it than a dwarf.
Oh dear. It had to happen sooner or later, didn’t it? And Final Fantasy veterans will be unsurprised to hear that it happened in the Marsh Cave.
The Marsh Cave is probably the first “real” dungeon that you encounter in Final Fantasy I, and its main challenge is one of endurance: it’s quite long and branches off in two different directions, so getting everything in a single expedition is challenging. Not impossible, but still challenging.
Sometimes bad things happen. But we can learn from them and try again…
