💍 Final Fantasy 2 - Week 7

[simias]

Final Fantasy 2 Beginner Club W07

Week 07	2026-02-13T15:00:00Z
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Vocabulary sheets, transcriptions etc.:

Final Fantasy II script

Stopping point

Once the Crystal Rod is in your possession.

Do not approach the tower once you have the rod as it will trigger a cutscene and start next week’s content. You can return to the town of Missidia to rest of you want however.

週刊完璧主義通信

Nothing permanently missable this week since all locations remain accessible until the endgame.

More details

Finn has been liberated! Finally some good news. Now we need to figure out what’s going on with Min’u and the Ultima tome.

Our journey seems to be headed towards Missidia. This is the land directly South of where Altea is located, on the other side of the sea. There are some tough enemies over there so make sure you’re in good shape before exploring over there.

Journey to Missidia (optional)

You can go to the town of Missidia, but you’ll soon discover that the White Mask that we got in Finn is only one piece of the puzzle. In order to enter the Tower of Missidia (located in the middle of a crescent-shaped island West of Altea) we need three items:

• The White Mask
• The Black Mask
• The Crystal Rod

You get get all the details by discussing with the NPCs and reading books in Missidia, but the short version is that we need to fetch the Crystal Rod from a cave near the town of Missidia, but in order to do that we need to get rid of a Doppelganger by using the White Mask and the Black Mask.

So the first order of business is the Black Mask, and in order to get it we have to leave Missidia for the time being and go the South Island which is the small island in the middle of the ocean I told you to ignore a few weeks ago.

South Island

Not much to say about it, you’ll find the Black Mask at the bottom of the dungeon. There is however a fairly amusing optional location that you can visit there.

To do so you have to go down normally on the 1st level by taking the stairs at the left side of the level (that’s the only way down, you can’t miss it). Then in the 2nd level go towards the top and take the first flight of stairs at the top-left (near a chest). Then follow that path down until you reach the optional area.

To actually get the mask you’ll have to return to the 2nd level and take the other path down.

Missidia

With both masks in hand, we can now collect the Crystal Rod! Well, almost. You see, the rod is in the cave South-East of the town of Missidia, inside a cave in the middle of a mountain range. However if you try to go there directly, you’ll see that a doppelganger is blocking your path at the end of the first level.

That’s why we needed the masks:

• First in the town of Missidia you’ll find an island on the middle of the pond with a staircase on it. If you go down you’ll find a strange statue. You have to put the White Mask on it and it will prevent the doppelganger from moving (for some reason).

• Then you can leave the town and finally go to the cave and use the Black Mask on the doppelganger itself, which will cause it to disappear, opening the path forward.

Then you just have to explore the dungeon as usual, searching for the Crystal Rod. This dungeon is filled with dead ends and fake walls, providing us the trademark FF2 dungeon crawling experience.

Also make sure to stock on some golden needles because there are enemies that can petrify you in there.

Once you have the rod you can teleport out (there won’t be a teleport tile this time, you have to use the spell or walk all the way back).

Map

Miscellaneous

Literature

In Missidia you can “interrogate” the bookshelves in the library (the empty building on the West part of the town). You can ask it about a bunch of keywords and get hint for the current quest, but also deeper lore about previous quest elements such as the Wyverns, the Goddess Bell, the Sun Flame etc…

Participation

• I’m playing along
• I will catch up later
• I’m still playing but I haven’t reached this section yet
• I’m a filthy preplayer but I’m here for the discussion

[Daisoujou]

First half

I didn’t intentionally set out to split my FF2 adventures into 2 parts per week, but it feels like they’ve split nicely that way where we have 2 big tasks more or less.

This time I feel like I got the pixel remaster experience. We walked into the island cave, smashed things with our strongest attacks, and just blitzed through it all only even healing a time or two in the entire dungeon dive. Not very interesting but I’ll take one power fantasy high after how much the game has slapped me around. The mask guys were cute. Leila has been around long enough she’s kind of a weaker Maria for me but she’s actually contributing significantly by now; I’m going to miss her when they take her away and hand me a new toddler to babysit.

@simias

Also make sure to stock on some golden needles because there are enemies that can petrify you in there.

Now I can go back to being afraid when I get to this, tomorrow maybe. I have a feeling I’m really going to appreciate this warning, thanks.

[simias]

I hesitated to move the island earlier as I mentioned previously in order to make the power scaling more reasonable but as you noticed I tried to have two big “chunks” per week so it ended up this way.

I also feel like this part of the game is just chaining dungeon after dungeon with little variety so I thought it was nice to have an easier, more whimsical breather in between.

I think the south island is one of the better dungeons in the game too. It actually rewards observing the level design to figure out which path leads where as you move between levels. Not a single dead end door or fake wall!

Surely this week’s second dungeon will follow suit…

[Daisoujou]

Yeah I liked the design! Fun little winding paths, lots of rewards in the dead ends (even if most weren’t too exciting), and the overlay making it kind of harder to see added some visual interest.

[Sisthra]

Week 7

Not really much to say this week. Played around with changing a couple of equipped weapons and bought some more spells in Misidia, but didn’t have enough for holy. I was actually surprised at how easy the Dark Mask dungeon was, but I’m not complaining. I missed the optional area so I will have to check it out later.

The second dungeon of the week hovewer was a classic FF2 experience lol. I may need to actually level basuna a bit. There were a couple of times were I had half the party petrified and had to decide if I wanted to risk it and go full offense with my two remaining guys or heal the petrified characters so I could attack with all four next turn (hopefully they wouldn’t get petrified again.)
Those 4 chimeras packs are quickly becoming scarier than any other enemy so far…
Also, first Molboro appearance!
Did not remember they were weak to Thunder

[simias]

smoking kills

@Sisthra

Also, first Molboro appearance!

Oh, good catch, I didn’t realize it was the first time we encountered Malboros. For some reason I thought we had them in FF1, but I got them mixed up with Ochus:

By the way the Famicom version of the Malboro uses a brown color scheme:

The PR colored them green to match the way they look in later games:

For those not familiar, Malboros are going to become recurring enemies in Final Fantasy, usually being some of the hardest normal enemies in the game due to their high health and devastating status ailments.

Here’s me having a jolly good time against one in FF8:

[Kelsyy]

I forgot to grab the white mask when I played last weeks session earlier today. I’m so good at this game

Maria’s cure hit 16. The only achievements I’m missing now and didn’t get last playthrough are bestiary, all keywords, and THE SWORD.

[simias]

Thank you to the folks who nominate monster sprites by the way.

Current haul:

[Daisoujou]

A Japanese video game company founded in 1994 by former employees of Toaplan following its bankruptcy. They are known primarily for their bullet hell shoot 'em ups

There sure are a lot of caves in this game. The difference is stark how much more interesting it is when they put us on a warship or have us rescue a princess from a coliseum prison. The doppleganger is an odd neat thing but what it’s guarding is ultimately another hole in the ground.

I overprepared for the stone status, only got hit by it twice I think. Overall wasn’t too challenging, just time consuming. I’m definitely starting to feel that some dungeons run a little long. I think it’s more a matter of the pace of the famicom battles (thus it probably feels a bit better in pixel remaster) and high encounter rate than the dungeons being excessively large in a vacuum, but I think the reason their dead ends and trap rooms get so tiring is a matter of pacing more than anything.

Honestly I had a decent enough time despite the grumbling, but right now we’re pretty comfortably clearing everything so I was mentally checking out a little at times when things ran long. I feel due for something a little more interesting and weird, I hope.

Hill Gigas probably became my favorite sprite now, though it’s also hard to not pick that rat.

I like the soldiers because the pole they’re holding makes me process them as an evil carousel moreso than a knight on a real horse.

[Sisthra]

Speaking of sprites I’m a big fan of some of the more animal-like we’ve gotten.

And of course, can’t not mention

Land Turtle should be the winner just because of how memorable it was in the first few weeks lol

[JupiterJesus]

I suspect your ease in the first area is because it seems to be leveled for someone who just got the ship. In fact, I went their first because I was searching for where to go, and found the enemies perfectly manageable before even doing Deist.

[simias]

I actually think that the Missidia Cave is the worst dungeon in the game. It’s so boring and filled with dead ends. It doesn’t help that we’re just here to find yet another meaningless macguffin. This part of the game with the two masks and the crystal rod feels like pure padding.

You could argue that it was also true of the Bell and the Flame but at least we had some memorable character moments in the Snow Cave and Kashuorn Castle, here we have nothing much. You could literally cut all these dungeons from the game and nothing would change story-wise.

But the good news is that it’s over, starting with next week we’re entering what I would consider the endgame and we’re going to be story-driven again. I think there are some really cool dungeons coming up, both in concept and in execution.

world design

By the way I can now expand on a complaint I have about this game without spoiling: I don’t get why they would introduce so many towns early on and then have almost nothing else for the rest of the game. It’s really strange design.

You explore Altea, Gatea, Finn, Palm, Poft, Salamander and Bafusk very early on, to the point where they kind of all blur together (with the exception of Salamander probably, which has a very distinct snowy style and memorably character interactions). By the time you enter Bafusk to spy on the Dreadnought (effectively the 3rd quest of the game) the only town you have left to visit in the entire game is Missidia.

I was so underwhelmed that Dist didn’t have a village or even a castle with more than 3 NPCs (now 2, F). Why wouldn’t there be a town there? Sure they got assaulted by the empire, but surely some civilians would have survived?

Paramekia doesn’t have a town. Kashuorn doesn’t have a town. A desert town would have been fun.

No Dwarf Cave. No Elf Village. No witch asking you about your legs.

Missidia is pretty cool as a mage town, admittedly.

I respect that they decided to experiment with the map layout, putting everything is a huge contiguous continent where you have multiple paths to go anywhere, it is pretty ambitious, but the end result is IMO a complete downgrade over FF1. It’s not too surprising to me that basically all FFs after that return to the FF1 formula of story-based incremental land unlocks.

@Sisthra

These ones look so weird to me. They’re super uneven, like a doodle almost.

I feel like the spritework of FF1 was more consistent overall, FF2 seems to have multiple art styles going at once. Some look cartoonish like this insect and the pirates, others seem to have more detailed lines and shadings like the ogres or the knights.

[simias]

Apparently the PSP/GBA version of FF2 have a mumble rapper enemy:

Also an enemy called Dark Soul, proving that FF2 takes place in Lordran:

[Sisthra]

@simias

I don’t get why they would introduce so many towns early on and then have almost nothing else for the rest of the game. It’s really strange design.

I guess one reason behind introducing so many towns one after the other so early is to make it a bigger shock when you see the Dreadnought bomb and destroy some of them? Showing the Dreadnought bombing random places on the map you haven’t visited yet wouldn’t have had the same effect

[frequent4832]

And is it just me or are there way fewer music tracks than in FF1? I feel like we’ve been listening to the same overworld, town, dungeon, and battle themes for 20 hours. There’s a pretty bangin’ boss theme too but it’s used so sparingly.

[simias]

I went through the OST and there are 14 “proper” music tracks in FF2 (removing things like the small jingles that play here and there) against 19 in FF1. So yeah, definitely a downgrade, especially given that the game is bigger overall.

I also find that there are a lot fewer really memorable tracks. We have the Chocobo theme of course, albeit in a truncated version. The main theme is great, and the battle themes are good too.

It probably doesn’t help that there’s this much backtracking and revisiting of locations in this game. The theme of the rebellion is pretty good, but you hear it so much:

Overall having gone through both game’s soundtracks just now I think that FF1 is just better overall. More tracks, more diversity, less filler.

The good news is that next week we’ll get a dungeon with an original (and I think unique) soundtrack.

[JupiterJesus]

Part 1

Holy crap that cave was long. I mean, the encounter rate had to be double the normal rate. I almost turned off encounters, it was so bad. A 3 minute dungeon took like 40 minutes+ just from encounters. I also didn’t rest before the dungeon, but it was fine because the enemies never taxed my resources, even with the insane number of encounters.

On the bright side I used my new 400+ mp to spam holy on all for every encounter to level it up. Got it to level 6 by the end on everyone, except Leia used Cloud. Sure it healed the slimes, but who cares.

I noticed that they have a goddess statue that revives your people instead of a church. Does that count as atheism for black mages?

[simias]

I forgot to mention that at the end of this week near the Crystal Rod you can also find an Aspire tome (Osmose in English) which is an incredibly valuable spell since it lets a spellcaster regenerate MP.

This is the only Aspire tome in the game, the only way to get more is to farm Wizards.

[LazyWerebear]

@simias

Do not approach the tower once you have the rod as it will trigger a cutscene and start next week’s content.

Oops… I forgot about this part and went to “save right outside the tower and turn off the game.” Thankfully I am able to just suspend the game until next week.