Previously on Batmans Dying Dream, Batman met Hojo I and beat him up! Well, no, lets credit that victory to Tommy because he made fun of Hojo.
Today
instead of chasing after Rubicant and the crystals immediately, Batmans decided to save the dwarves from the Super Nintendo Cannon which theyre already defending against. The dwarves can save themselves, but Batman likes to play hero.
Tower of Bab-il
To be fair, though, I guess we cant go to the upper portion of the Tower of Bab-il anyway. Plus the path ahead is a dead end. Its a shame because theres treasure in an area we cant get to.
Donnie has taken this opportunity to go nude. He figured that he can beat up the Super Nintendo Cannon with Karate, and hes discarding all of his clothes so he can move faster and be more of a Karate.
Lets go back to that locked door.
Alright, lets kick some tough monster ass.
Hey, Batman actually had a decent line there. Also, in other versions, the lackeys say something like, Killing dwarves is fun! But you cant exactly say something like that in a 1991 SNES game, can you.
Alright, miniboss time!
Price is Right Losing Horn
Never mind. Hahahahahaha!
Run!
Well, with their dying
movements
the Dark Imps end up blowing up the computer system which manages the conditions of the Super Cannon. Somehow. Oh, and we ended up standing there yet again because Batman sucks at being a hero.
Okay, GAF. Theres a lot of bullshit dialogue here and I feel like itll take up a lot of space if I post it all. So Im not.
.
Man, Im gonna post a snip of something I posted in the Final Fantasy Community Thread.
Huh? Oh cool, they taught you how to stop computer-operated cannons when you were a traitor to us, eh Donnie? Wait, how does this cannon even
work? Where did all of this technology come fr--
Logic? In my Final Fantasy? No. Accept everything at face value!
Get outta here, Batman!
Donnie kicks everyone out
of the bathroom cuz he has to take a leak because somehow he learned how reprogram the Super Cannon in the span of a few seconds or something. I dont know. Logic never ever applies to Final Fantasy.
DONNIE, GET OFF THE TOILET. Youre taking too damn long in there.
(You dont even want us to tell your wife you love her? Was it against the rules to freaking discuss even
love back then?)
Cry in Sorrow
And we lose the power of Karate forever.
Cant even freaking Exit out of this damn place. We get a massive hole in our party, and its incredibly noticeable when you go through more battles as you descend the Tower.
The dwarves are safe (even though I think they could have fought against the Super Nintendo Cannon with Dwarf Tank Power anyway), and Donnie wouldve wanted that. Its just too bad that the only cool people in the party now are Clair and Tommy.
Its also too bad that Donnie couldnt go one-on-one with Golbez. Thats the final battle we want to see, really.
Golbez, Clad in Darkness
Speak of the devil
!
Well, it was a nice dream. What am I talking about? This was a garbage dream. Batman had the worst dying dream ever and I cant stand playing this ga--
Theres more of this nonsense?!
This gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaammmmme!
Alright, theres a ton of dialogue here, and again, Im not going to show all of it. It honestly goes around in circles and its quite repetitive.
Gotta find a way to introduce characters and give a very very very very short reason as to why musical chairs happened in this party makeup.
[
Run!
I think its incredibly obvious that Golbezs Science >>>>> Haddocks brand of Science.
Haddock has come up with the best plan in the world. Haddock goes around day-in and day-out with a bunch of bombs attached to his body. He does this stuff all the time, I bet. You see, he never ever runs around the airship to look for a bomb before he jumps off.
No one cares about Batman and Beer. I know I stopped caring about them when Batman died. Well, I never cared about Beer, but yknow
Somehow this explosion manages to close the volcano or hole to the underground. Or something. Guys, this isnt logical. There arent a lot of rock layers or top layers on the mountain that can allow the entire underground opening to cave in. But we have to ask ourselves about the depth of the underground. This is never ever addressed. Nothing is ever addressed.
No, Im not going to stop thinking about this. This is silly!
And if you go back to Agart now, no one ever says anything. They must be the most oblivious people in the world. A giant explosion occurred and the mountains near their town crumbled on themselves. Somehow. I dont know.
Huh? Tommy, you should have said that
before Haddock killed himself.
Before.
This is something I really missed in the DS version. IIRC, the DS version omitted the slapstick humour here. It always made me chuckle when I was little, and to be honest, it made me do that again. Haddocks two assistants are busy trying to retool the airship, and ones super-lazy. So Mr. Diligent runs around trying to get his job done, and drags Mr. Lazy along with him. He jumps around and spins in the air whenever he gets mad. Its cute.
They dont even give a crap. Oh, Haddocks trying to strap bombs to himself again? Hes fine. They also tell us that we can use the hook to get the hovercraft and fly it wherever we need it. How did Haddock even know we
had a hovercraft? Why didnt he get it himself? Why didnt he install the hook when he came back to Baron to put the Mystic Silver on the Enterprise?
Batman cant even summon his Paladin Powers to tell her that her fathers dead. Some Paladin he turned out to be. Batman sucks. Hes a terrible protagonist.
Guys, remember how I said Donnies wife was one of the best characters in this game? Shes exhibiting some prescience at the moment. Youll see why later on. Even she knows that live for me is a shitty line.
As for Bolton, well, we all wish he were a better character in this version.
The Airship
When I was little, I thought this animation was completely
mindblowing.
Now Im like, How the crap is that flimsy little hook holding onto a vehicle like that? Haddock may be an engineer, but I dont think he thought of things like physics and engineering in that respect. Especially since were flying with this thing attached at a rather decent speed.
This is the permanent home for the Enterprise. We will not be using it again. Well, I dont usually use it again. What a waste, eh? Went to the surface to put a hook and silver on it and we never use it again.
Zero no Kiseki Get Over the Barrier!
Cave Eblana is kinda like the Underground Pass in Baron; well, the first part of it, anyway. I like this dungeon because its all blue and stuff. As we go through the dungeon, we come across some old friends in the form of palette swaps.
Skulls arent hard. Burn them with fire. They
do have the ability to inflict your party members with Curse. Curse is a good thing when you use it against an enemy. It is a bad thing when the enemies use it against you. Curse lowers strength and defense stats by 50%. You dont want that on your squishies if theyre in your front row, and you certainly dont want it on your physical attackers. Er, its not much of a problem in FF4 SNES, though.
Ironbacks are just as useless as their Armadilo counterparts. You can end their lives in one strike. Its the Golbats you have to worry about because their Vampire spell animations take 200 years to animate so youll be sitting there waiting to take your turn. See, see
this is why more games need to play out their battles like Suikoden so you arent stuck their waiting for enemies to execute commands because everything is done at the same time.
God, I hate Zubats and Golbats in this game. They suck.
How can you people afford to
stay here? Look at this. Its expensive. I think youre charging more than the dwarves!
We could buy some weapons here. You know how much I dont like equipping Beer with arrows in this version, so Im going to equip her with the Power Staff. Now shell be Power Beer. The black robe also gives Clair a bonus to her Wisdom stat so well grab that too.
Please dont eat each other.
No, you will never be able to help the Eblanians out. Ever. Sorry, mate.
Oddly, the makeshift hospital is the most popular room in this town. Everyones still injured here, but you have to ask yourselves how long theyve been here. For all we know, Eblan was terrorized at the beginning of the game, which may have been a week or two ago. Or they could have been attacked shortly before we got the airship (because we came here around the time we had to go to Toroia). Were not even sure
how they even got attacked. No one ever tells us.
So
Im not sure if the hospital should be crowded like this, but to be fair, its not like they have anywhere else to go anyway.
The biggest buzz is about this prince. Hes digging a hole to go to the Tower of Bab-il. Um, that doesnt sound very smart to me, you know. This prince must be an idiot. Also, apparently, everyone in Eblan is a ninja. You know what this means, right? Ninja < Karate. Fabul is still standing and is still populated, and they used Karate. Eblan uses Ninja. Their castles abandoned.
Dawww
I thought that was Golbezs Love Hospital, not Rubicants hideout. These people are mistaken.
Genso Suikoden II Labyrinth (Penpe 2)
As we go through the dungeon, we come across some downed soldiers who talk about their prince with their last breaths. Their prince left them to die here. He sounds like an amazing guy~
Were just as amazing so were going to leave them to die here too.
This dungeon has a
ton of hidden passageways to find treasures. Its almost like figuring out a puzzle: you see a treasure chest but you have to figure out how youre going to get it as you go through the dungeon. This means that you have to explore the cave in multiple trips in order to get everything you want (unless youve memorized the dungeon after multiple playthroughs). It makes the player reach for a goal instead of saying, well, I picked the wrong path so lets go down the other one.
Not just
make a map, have branching paths where one is the right one and the other one has a treasure down it because they couldnt be bothered to put effort into decent dungeon design because they were so focused on making the game look extremely pretty no Im not talking about another game possibly in this very series where dungeons bored me out of my damn mind what are you people talking about
Oh no, I anticipate something dreadful is about to happen. Say, can I get that treasure chest first?
Hey, its those two guys that the people in the cave were talking about. How convenient.
I
like Rubicant already. Edge is a loser and doesnt feel the same way.
if hes the Fiend of Fire, why the hell would use
Flame against him? Are you stupid? What the hell is wrong with you?
Even he thinks youre an idiot! He thinks youre so foolish that he teaches you how to use the spell
properly, and he decides to kill you because youre terrible at your job.
I didnt show it, but Rubicant decided to show his leg while casting Glare on Edge. Why? I have no idea. He must
really like his legs. To be fair, theyre awesome legs.
Why do I think Edge is suddenly worse than Edward? At least Edward knows what accountability is. Edge would probably go in gung-ho and get his whole kingdom slaughtered in the process.
Well, hes dead now. Lets move on. We cant do anything to help him. I would prefer not to, personally. And Rubicant is too nice. Now, for that treasure chest.
Why does this game keep doing that? Seriously. Did no one edit this?
No. I think youre an idiot. You used
flame on the Fiend of Fire. Obviously you cant put two and two together and youre useless to me. You deserved your butt-beating.
Ninja < Karate. Stop being a little suck and learn from Fabul. And if freaking
Batman isnt cutting you slack, youre clearly doing your job wrong.
Rydia
Whats your problem? Were just picking on him. You dont know how to have fun anymore, Clair. What happened? You used to be cool.
Well, thats mostly Batmans fault because hes useless, a terrible Paladin, a terrible character, and a terrible protagonist.
How did she even know about Abe anyway? She was never attached to him. She never said a single word to him while we were in the Watery Pass.
Is this supposed to be making me feel something? Because Im clearly not feeling anything. You know what would have been better? If Clair were younger and werent aged. If she were younger, Id be more sympathetic. Shes not seven anymore, and right now shes coming off as a little
um, unstable. Because we all like our Callers and Black Mages unstable. To be fair to her, though, she suffered PTSD as a child but then she was able to cast Fire and she was okay after that? This scene was probably supposed to make her seem compassionate and fragile or something. I have no idea.
FF4 really didnt handle Rydia well at all, Im sorry. I genuinely dislike how they handled her character. She had the potential to be a good character because of her backstory, but they ended up messing it up a little by aging her.
They totally SORASd her to act as something for Edge to hit on.
Tommy likes being in charge of the beer.
This is an actual line of dialogue in the game. No, I did not put this in GIMP and mess with the image. I just think its hilarious they didnt go with Cure but went with
Cure 2. Because this line of dialogue sounds absurd.
So, uh
do they say Give me a Cure 2 bottle? sometimes?
Hey Cid!
Keep it in your pants.
Also, why bother using Cid/Haddocks theme now anyway? Did Uematsu only get commissioned for just a tiny bit of character themes and figured Edge didnt deserve one (he doesnt; dont get me wrong)? Uematsu probably thought Edge casting Flame on the
Fiend of Fire was really lame and thought Cid deserved the theme more.
I-its not like I
like you or anything, gawwwwwd!
Our new party member is Edge, short for
Edward
Geraldine. Edge knew that name was stupid and knew it was associated with a crappy prince from another country so he decided to rename himself to something better. Its just too bad that Edge is kind of an idiot.
So, with all new characters, lets show off his Nintendo Power artwork and his chibi artwork. Theyre not as bad as we think.
Edges stats arent actually that bad. Hes a pretty balanced character. He does a few things that I really like in playable characters and thats: be fast, and dual-wield. Its just that he cant excel at everything he can do so what we need to do is go with what he brings to the party in terms of attack commands, but more on that in a minute.
Edge can dual-wield, but unlike Donnie, how much attack power his weapons have make a difference when hitting things. He cant use shields, and his attacks are generally weaker than Batman and Tommys. The problem is that when hes in the front, his poor defense can be taken advantage of real quick; and when hes in the back, hell do less damage. He can equip ranged weapons like boomerangs but theyll make his attacks weaker. So
you kinda have to see what you like him as (do you want him to be a thief, do you want him to attack, do you want him to help with magic, etc).
Edge is one of the endgame party members, and he ended up drawing the short straw because he doesnt excel much at anything. So what can Edge offer in battle?
Fatalize
One of Edges attacks is called Dart. This is one of the most damaging commands in the game provided you have enough ammo for it. You can select a blade or throwing weapon from your inventory and throw it at a monster for decent damage. We will be able to take advantage of some duplication tricks to increase Edges arsenal of weapons to throw though.
Edge can also cast Ninja magic. Its pretty mediocre compared with Clairs Black Magic. Hes a better physical attacker, tbh. You only have access to Flame right now, but youll get more as the game goes on. This is where Edge kind of sucks in this version compared to the DS version where he seems to get better spells.
Edge has a Sneak command. Its Steal. It likes to be unsuccessful, and when its unsuccessful, Edge takes damage. Im surprised that I actually stole something here. Speaking of stealing something, lets talk about the
Sneak Glitch!
If you open up the menu
right as Edge is stealing something, the character can equip whatever Edge steals, even if its not their brand of weapon or armour.
So
Fuck, lets make Clair play a harp just because. If you go into the Equip menu and unequip it, you cannot re-equip it. This is how you can have people like Beer and Clair equip shields and stuff. Cool, eh?
So, now we need to go back through the cave to rename him.
So, if hes a ninja
doesnt that mean that
you cant see him?
I think I made the right decision.
Next Time: We are just horrible at this hero thing.