Final Fantasy II Part 9: The Land of the Dragoons

Journey to Dist

 Palm, I find a woman named Layla who just happens to be heading to Dist in her ship.

Don't you just love RPG convenience? Sure, you can have some terrible luck, but it's so convenient for plot purposes!

HAHAHA! I found the character clichés!

Wait! Your ship can dock away from ports? I'm so boarding your ship!

Well, like a creepy candy van, I find myself surrounded by pirates (Oh wait, really? Refer to Final Fantasy and you may want to reconsider, mateys!). Check out the fun below:

Pirates must just suck in this series; this makes two for two really easy pirate fights. In any case, now I have a new party member and a ship that I don’t have to pay to use! Layla the pirate appears to be multi-talented. She has very high agility (which I have read raises the number of hits you do per attack), can use knives, bows, and swords, and has Bolt (but I have already decided she will be a fighter). I hope that those attributes pay off in battle.

Oh, geez, your HP also sucks! Well, let's get to the program  (Note: no women were injured using the Firion Tough Love Program™).

Unsure of where Dist is, I find in a forum that to view the world map, I must press B and select (Hey! I tried that earlier!), and I must also have Scott’s Ring in my inventory (Oh…). The map is horrible, though.

Ugh! It scrolls so slowly. Must everything about FF2 be so strange or clunky?

Along the way to Dist, I fight random battles in my ship (if only I could just skip these battles and get to my destination quicker…), and I fight some palette-swapped enemies.

Square's Law: All pirates must be weak pansies but carry large amounts of money for the heroes to plunder (I hope the irony isn't lost on the pirates.).

Layla turns out to be really weak, probably because she is trying to use two weapons at once. I tried this already with Firion, and his effectiveness went down the toilet. I will stick with daggers with her and just let her use one weapon, so I give her the Gauchet I got from the Warship.

I find an isolated island (How did I not notice that most of the world I have visited so far has been on the same continent?) where I see a castle in the distance. Have I been lucky to find Dist so quickly? The world map turns me around a lot at first, so I wasn’t sure if just going east would do the trick—thankfully, it does!

Firion and the gang battle the undead of the bayou.

Why take the forest route when I can take the Canoe?

The Lonely Castle Dist

Inside the castle, I find a boy who asks for my name. He’s a strange one, as he seems to teleport (I guess they couldn’t quite get the walking script down. It reminds me of the final boss in FF1.).

I'm the Sun Flame!

I head upstairs and find the kid with his mom, and the kid has already decided that I’m the good guys (Good thing! Don’t mess with the Sun Flame!). The mom tells me that her husband, a Dragoon, was killed by the Empire. The only way to understand the only surviving Hiryuu inside is to acquire the Pendant somewhere nearby (I guess she didn’t know the exact location).

Forget the Pendant. We should get Rosetta Stone for Dragons!

Before leaving, I raid the castle of its treasures. The castle is as horribly designed as the one in Kashuon.

I guess this would have been the Media Room.

Customs isn't going to be pleased with this.

I don't know which one is worse--this or the Unicorn!

Dist Castle Treasure Haul: cottage, Stop book, Stone book, Curse book, Unicorn (!), Eye Drop, Golden Needle, Elder IQ, Antidote, Crucifix, Heart, Echo Screen, Winged Sword, and Phoenix Down (called a FenixDn in this title)

Dist Cave

North of the Dist Castle is the cave where I should be able to find the pendant. The road splits, and I head north first and go down the stairs.

OK, now we're just reusing the same exact backgrounds!

Too easy! Run out and save now before we have any problems!

I quickly exit with the Pendant, save, and re-enter the cave to find the rest of the treasures.

Wow, the Winged Sword is really powerful!

As I search for treasure in the southwest side, I have some very unfortunate luck.

Gigas: "That's what you get for skipping my chest back on the Warship!" 

On my second try down, I make it to the same area and find yet another Gigas hanging around.

Gigas: "I'm not letting you get away that easily; I know you want those treasures!" I wonder if Mr. M coded this part of the game.

I have to give serious credit to YouTube Let’s Player HCBailly on winning this one. Here is the basic strategy.

Gigas: "Grr! Why did you have to learn you could curse me to cripple my attack and defense?!"

In a subsequent battle, I also find using the Sleep Sword to be very effective in putting the Gigas to sleep while attempting to curse him. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it screws me over. At least I’m actually beating these guy now!

So much for confidence. I'm calling this place Gigas Alley from now on!

Returning to Dist Castle

I turn around and leave Gigas Alley and return to Dist Castle. If there is good treasure in that cave, I don’t want to know until I’m strong enough to consistently take out those enemies.  When I reach the Hiryuu, I find out that I can now understand it using the Pendant. It tells me that it was poisoned and is dying. The only way for the race to survive is to submerge its Egg in the Spring of Life in the Northern Cave.

Another staple of the series: Ultima! Wait; Lord British created a Final Fantasy spell?

There are two things wrong with the Hiryuu’s statement. For one thing, if I submerge the Egg, wouldn't there still be only one Hiryuu left (unless there are other Hiryuus hanging around the world I'm not aware of)? Second of all, this means I have to return to Gigas Alley right away!

Returning to the Cave

I re-enter Dist Cave/Gigas Alley and head to the southwest again. This time, I make it to the bottom without fighting a single Gigas and manage to get the treasure. I see the Spring of Life, but since it’s on the other side, I cast Exit, heal, save, and re-enter. When I try to head to the southeast path, I fight a pair of Gigas, and the luck quickly runs out. I think that I am just going to have to be really lucky to make my way through this. Lucky and patient!

I quickly sail back to Bofsk to the west of Dist for a pit stop, where I find that news doesn’t travel very fast.

Looks like somebody didn't get the memo; the Warship is gone!

I open my menu and realize that I have nearly 60,000G, so I spend a ton of money on Cottages (allows me to restore HP and MP in the field) and an Ether for Maria.

Once I re-enter the cave, I take it one floor at a time, fighting alternating battles between really easy undead fights, screaming Souls (weaker versions of the Red Soul I fought in Kashuon), and groups of one or two Gigas! I try the cursing tactic (No, not the tactic where I curse every time I lose to a Gigas!) so many times I actually level Curse to two, but it still misses often!

Having so much trouble with the random encounters when they throw in multiple Gigas, I decide to skip the treasures for now and at least try to submerge the Egg. I cross a bridge and fall down a floor. Having none of it, Guy casts Warp to go up one level and cross without any problems. There are several Revenants (golden zombies!) and Souls, but thankfully, the Gigas seem to have hidden for now. Maybe they do not travel deep into the cave, kind of like the Hall of Giants in FF1.

Get used to seeing that a lot when fighting groups of Souls, or grab a book. They all cast, and all the spell graphics and messages have to cycle through each party member.

I make it down to the floor where I can actually reach the Spring of Life, and after healing up, it’s a mad dash before Gigas start showing up again. I'm nervous!

Seriously?

I enter the first door, and it’s empty. Instead of warping out like a smart person, I let myself get into an encounter with some Ogres (Lucky me; Ogres are easy!). Doors two and four are also empty rooms, so I head into the third door and find some Chimeras blocking the way. I enter another random battle so Maria can restore some of her MP with an Ether (It doesn't seem to be as effective outside of battle!). Check out the boss fight below:

This is by far the easiest boss fight I have had in FF2! The fear of losing to Giants (since I can’t think of a way to say Gigas in the plural form without sounding silly!) must have driven me to be strong enough to rip anything else to pieces. Firion casts Berserk on himself to become more powerful (In this game, you don’t lose control of your character in Berserk.), even though I really don’t know how effective it is at level 1, and Maria casts Safe on the party, even though I really should have used Shell since the Chimeras use Fire 7 to harm me instead. The only drawback is that Guy does not have a good weapon because I have not seen a good axe in a long time. I hope that changes soon, and when I get a new weapon, I will train him with that and his current axe at the same time.

After saving the game, I try to go back in one last time to pick up the remaining treasures.

In the box holding the Magic Cane, I fight two Green Souls. They cast Cure on me! I feel bad for killing them.

Uh oh, here we go again!

Fighting one Gigas is easy, but fighting two of them makes for a very difficult battle. It takes about five minutes, which go by quickly thanks to listening to LordKat’s video series “Until We Win” (I was watching his playthrough review of Strider during this part.). After all that, unfortunately, Guy dies and gets no stat bonuses. At least it’s done, but then after healing, two Giants take me out. It wasn't meant to be! Even though it would be nice to have and sell a lot of those items, I can live without them, so I will.

Dist Cave Treasure Haul: 30G, Pendant, potion, Knight Armor, Flame Bow, Elder IQ, Heart, Mithril Helmet, mithril armor, Magic Cane, Mithril Shield, Dragon Bean (?). There were some more items in there, but I skip them because of the frequent encounters with Gigas. That makes two dungeons where Gigas ruins the fun (I can just hear him gloating!).

I return to Dist to check up on the Hiryuu, and I find out that it died while I was out.

Is that something that will happen later in the game? That would rock!

After gushing over how awesome Hiryuus are when they’re not dead, I head back to Altea to see what errand Hilda wants me to run next.

Coming next time! There's Something About Hilda!

Thanks for reading, and leave your comments below!