Team Awesome Smart Dudes and Their Gal Celes, as their mission took them to the Jidoor Opera House, added one more insanely cool, handsome, and interesting fellow to their ranks, the “notorious gambler” Setzer. Only now, with multiple dudes dogging Celes in the world’s least convincing manner, are they ready to take on the Empire. What about Twiggy, the #Resistance’s Light of Hope, you ask? Uh, she’ll be taking a powder on this, a mission that could be the culmination of all their sacrifice and hard work. Should be fine.
We pick back up with the Jidoor Strike Team aboard Setzer’s floating tribute to his loneliness, as it sails through the stormy skies toward Vector. Winona asks Setzer, who is staring moodily ahead from the prow, “This unwieldy-looking ship really moves! Could it crash?” It would be best to answer this with a gentle lie, since if Winona was dumb enough to ask this at all, honesty is just going to make his eyes bug until they fall out of his head and roll off the deck of the ship and into the ocean. Wait. Proceed, Setzer: “When things fall, they fall! It’s all a matter of fate…” Of course, Setzer injected enough dorky melodrama into the truth that Winona is able to mostly ignore it. He instructs the captain to land “some distance away” so they’re not spotted. This, too, strikes me as a no-brainer, as Setzer didn’t become the owner of the only airship in the world this morning, but he’s just all, “Right. I’ll wait on board in case of an emergency.” You can just say you don’t want to go. No one’s gonna judge, man.
Sure it looks nice from the outside and it’s in the best school zone, but does it have a modernized kitchen?
On the nighttime world map, the ship sails over the ocean toward four roving spotlights on the horizon. A massive ziggurat made of glowing bronze looms larger and larger as they approach, and honestly if they’re this close to it they already should have been spotted, but no matter: Setzer brings her down to the south of the Empire’s steampunk heart. And just like that, it’s daytime again on the world map as Kyan stands outside a tiny town called Albrook. I guess they flew all night!
Two guards in Magitek Armor stand sentry at the town’s entrance but do nothing at all to bar Kyan’s way. Just past them, a man tells him, “This is Albrook, the occupied city…” Is there only the one? And it’s right next to Vector! If this is the extent of the Empire’s long-term tyranny, maybe we’re all worried for nothing.
A man with a ponytailed mullet (popular men’s hairstyle the world over) is hanging out in the weapons shop, probably to bore GRRM silly with every detail of his totally real katana he bought at a con, but to Kyan he dishes some lore about the Atma, aka Ultima, weapons. “1000 years ago, during the War of the Magi, 2 so-called Atma Weapons existed,” he says. “One changed a person’s power into a sword, the other was a monster, bred for mass destruction.” I know this is the original incarnation of the idea of the Ultima Weapon, and I find it hilarious that out of the gate they went right to, “It’s a boss, and a sword. Yes, they need to have the exact same name. What are you, stupid?”
Don’t worry, he’ll probably just have his wife burn it and tell everyone you’re a hack! Worst-case, he, uh, kills you.
Kyan is shooed out of the local tavern–referred to as a “dormitory” for Imperial soldiers by one sellout goon behind the bar–for being a) “broke” (fair) and b) not with the Empire, which seems like a problem for our heroes, on the verge of infiltrating Vector, if it’s that visibly obvious. Oh well! It’s barely a spoiler to say this will never come up again. After a quick stop back at the airship to configure equipment and see if Setzer has anything helpful to say (nope) Kyan makes the short walk north to the nest of despotism responsible for his wife and son’s deaths, which he barely remembers.
If you’re so smart why don’t YOU come up with a better name for Goblin Mary Poppins.
Finally, our brave resistance fighters arrive at Vector, to carry out what will certainly be their ultimate mission! We have no reason to believe otherwise! Right off the bat some nobody power-walking past the inn calls Kyan an “ugly brute,” which is hurtful. He is not ugly. In a tiny house that looks like it was lifted out of Gregminster, an old crone sitting in an unfurnished room jumps past the niceties and asks, “Pledge your allegiance to the Empire?” When Kyan politely refuses, she’s all, “What!!” and two guards in red headbands (sprites identical to the common thieves of Zozo, if you were wondering, and surely you were) leap out of the corners to punish his sedition. Or, I guess, lack thereof, since he’s from Doma. But as soon as the guards are dealt with, the woman says, “Right…I’m sure you can do it!” Whose side are you on, lady?
Other NPCs milling about Vector’s shopping district have nothing to contribute but gossip about major Imperial players. One guy is very upset about Celes’s traitor turn because “The other side’s sure to lose!” Someone’s never played a videogame or watched a movie before! Which, yeah, that makes sense. Godspeed, innocent NPC. A woman watching over a child running all over the street like a lunatic says, “Cid, the director of Magitek research, is a genius! He gave my child the gift of cure Magic!” The moppet, indeed, hits Kyan with a Cure spell while shouting, “And…CURE!!!” You’re not Harry Potter, you can do it without talking, kid. Finally, in the inn, Kyan finds a man and a woman, of the same sprite types that are all over town, canoodling in a rare double bed in the presidential suite. Talking to the man first reveals that he intends to “stay here and volunteer to be a soldier,” which immediately leads me to believe he’s been enticed, if you will, to enlist. I am not proud of this. The woman instead balks at him, “In the army that destroyed our village??? What about your promise to begin anew in Maranda?” There are two possibilities here, and I don’t know which one is sadder: 1) this is phrased awkwardly and their village is Maranda (which, recall, was burned by Celes and is now occupied by the Empire), and she wants to “begin anew” in the same place; or 2) they are from some other village that was destroyed by the Empire and want to start over in a village that was destroyed by the Empire. Maybe it is better if they just stay here.
Masculinity so fragile it has to refuse magic powers
Trying to progress up the stairs to the north just gets the party caught in some seemingly unwinnable battles with guards, so Kyan is left to explore the eastern area of Vector. There he finds the entrance to the Magitek Research Facility–in case you’ve forgotten like I did, the team’s current infiltration target–guarded by two standard-issue guards in brown helmets and a third official that’s dressed like Emperor Palpatine’s Royal Guard. This costume choice, of course, tracks. The Imperial stooges bar Kyan from entry, which seems like a real wrench thrown into this mission’s works, but about 20 feet back from the sentries, “hiding” behind a box but on the wrong side, thus in plain view of the Imperials, is an old man. “Shh! I’m a [Rebel] sympathizer! I’ve heard of you!” I think we can all agree that he is canonically shouting this at the top of his lungs.
Deep Throat here, carrying on while Kyan is having a standard Don Knotts reaction to all of this, figures they should move their sensitive conversation elsewhere, so he relocates one crate over, still hiding on the wrong side of it. That’ll do, pig. He explains his plan: “While I distract the soldiers, climb onto the steel tower from this box, and enter the facility!” A maze of steel ducts does indeed run from this spot toward the facility, so that part seems sound, if not for the fact that the man is confabbing about all this with a suspicious foreigner right in front of the guards. He asks if Kyan is ready, and this is as ready as Kyan is ever going to be so he says yes. Nothing, though, could prepare him for the old rebel’s “plan”: a sort of hopping mating dance toward the guards, on alternate hops Don Knottsing and then flinging his tiny sprite hands out as if he’s playing castanets. It is possible he is playing castanets. When he is directly in front of the guards, he declares, “I…I’m gonna be sick!” As one of them is telling the old man to go away and not vomit and/or dance a one-man flamenco on their shoes, the camera pans back to Kyan, who first has to figure out what side of the box to climb upon. It takes Kyan–again, this is entirely his stupid problem, and not mine–a few laps around the crate to determine it’s the same side he was originally standing by. God, Kyan, what is your damage. Up on the metal ducting running above the guards, he overhears the old man mumble, “Urghh… Gonna toss it all…” I hope he downed some ipecac right before this so he can really commit to the bit. All Kyan can see is the man hunched over and making a frowny face as the guards watch, before he hops off his secret highway and heads north toward what we’re now calling the Magitek Factory. My god! This isn’t about research at all! What about the SCIENCE?!
Right away the team is confronted with a Stormtrooper in a Magitek mech suit that’s labeled Proto Armor–I’m guessing this means the facility is guarded using whatever experimental prototype tech they have lying around. It becomes apparent why this model didn’t make it out of alpha: while it’s got a lot of firepower, including a lightning laser and an all-enemies missile attack that halves HP with each hit, it runs out of MP after, like, two rounds of this. Remember when adversaries in videogames even had MP to run out of? Good times.
Kyan rides a hook across from one platform to another, though it’s unclear what the hook is for, since there is no assembly line on this level, just a bunch of corrugated metal and tubing that runs to other tubing, for unknown purposes. (The hook is, obviously, in place for Kyan to reach a chest containing a Flame Sabre, but that’s not the point.) The only Magitek Armor or people to be found in here so far are Proto Armors and their operators, and yet all the hooks and gears and such are moving. This is all silly and vaguely irritating enough, but additionally, the background music has an infrequent hook that sounds enough like the whoosh preceding a random battle that I keep getting jump-scared into thinking a fight is happening. Yes, I am a giant baby that can’t go into haunted houses, what about it? Kyan hops through a tube with a penis head covering on it (the cover disappears, sparing us the visual of Kyan getting passed like a kidney stone) and lands on a rolling conveyor belt that deposits him in the room to the south, next to a chest with an X-Potion in it. You know, in case any of the workers visibly on duty in this very functional factory has an industrial accident and needs the first aid kit.
Kyan progresses in this manner further into the factory, grabbing a Thunder Blade from the next chest. (I am concerned that Tightass’s limp dick water sword is also going to be in here somewhere.) Down some more metal roller conveyors into a third room, he finally spots some Magiteks rolling out of a chamber below and onto the factory line. I guess I was previously in the factory lobby that still had a bunch of running, but ornamental, machinery in it. Fuck it. If they don’t care I don’t either.
No, you have not gone colorblind–the whole place looks like this.
Holy shit, this is so boring. Blah blah, everything is gunmetal gray, yadda yadda, Gau uses Tek Laser a lot, blee bloo giant wolf guard dogs. I am fast-forwarding. After 35 minutes of wandering around and likely getting lost several times in this monochromatic cure for insomnia, interspersed with a couple dozen random battles against the same four enemy types in various combinations, Kyan is dumped by some rollers into yet another factory floor room and bumbles into eavesdropping on none other than Kefka. He panics and makes a spectacle of himself before hopping behind a crate, not that Kefka would notice, as his senses have been deadened to any histrionics that don’t literally cause seismic activity. Kefka walks over to where Kyan was a moment ago, possibly concerned someone else is in the room, but he gets over it. “I’m all-powerful!” he screeches. “Hee, hee, haw! I’m collecting Espers! I’m extracting Magic! And… … … I’ll restore the…Statues!” He laughs in a very self-satisfied manner at how well this address directly to me went, and strolls away. He’s probably off to throw some puppies into a river.
It looks like Kefka’s exiting the scene, but the camera follows him to two humanoid creatures cowering behind some machinery. He says to one, a not un-Twiggy-like naked blue lady with bright green hair, “You’ve been completely drained of your powers! Now you’re useless to me!” And he punches her with both his fists, sending her flying onto a conveyor belt, shortly followed by her silent companion. I don’t know if Espers count as puppies, but I think it’s close enough.
When the camera pans back to Kyan to put me back in control, Kefka is still standing there giggling at his own cruelty, but by the time Kyan walks down there the clown is gone. There’s nothing else for it but to hop on the conveyor belt after the two Espers. They’re chilling at the bottom of this Esper trash compactor, with a lot of what look like bones. Do Espers leave skeletons when they die–evidence to this point suggests no–or has Kefka tossed a bunch of humans into the garbage as well? Are these all Celes’s predecessors that didn’t survive the infusion of M-M-M-Magic?! The important thing here is that Kyan can go out the door and pitch a tent (hee hee) at the save point, something the two dying Espers don’t seem to consider doing. I guess they haven’t had time to hit the item shop.
Now that he and the team are all rested (but, I hope, not sexually sated, because no one should ever touch Winona again), Kyan returns to the Esper dump to talk to Kefka’s latest victims. First he approaches the burly and horned Esper. But if our heroes were expecting these two to thank them for the assistance, Kyan gets a rude awakening from the horny one headbutting him across the room, and straight into a boss fight.
Winona is apparently unable to steal Ifrit’s incredible purple leg warmers. What good is this man to anyone?
Obviously, this hulking jerk with giant horns is Ifrit, which probably means his little blue pal is Shiva. This iteration of Ifrit doesn’t sell the fire theme much–he’s olive-green like Blanca and has purple hair and ’80s aerobics gear to match. Based only on appearance, and if he weren’t exclusively casting Fire and Fire 2, I’d assume he is a Jazzercise elemental. After Kyan does most of the work against him, he disappears, and Shiva–mostly as she appeared as a smaller sprite, but now with purple ribbons acting as a pelvic modesty panel–replaces him on the battlefield. She, too, only knows how to cast her Ice and Ice 2 spells, but she’s, like, blue, so I didn’t need the thematic reinforcement. After a few rounds against her, she disappears and Ifrit returns. Come on, guys, this isn’t a tag team match.
They go back and forth like this several times before Shiva finally moans, “Who’re you…?” Is this the only piece of English writing in existence that uses “who’re”? If not, it should be. Ifrit slinks back into view to add, “I sensed a kindred spirit… You have Ramuh’s power…?” Yeah, and they kind of had it this entire time, while you were attacking them! “Wait! We’re…Espers…” I like how he’s trying to spin this as the humans misunderstanding the situation. This was self-defense, brother!
As Kyan takes a knee to recover from having the entire party on his back for that fight, Ifrit and Shiva conference. “Well, Ramuh DID entrust them with his power,” Shiva reasons. I am going to assume they can somehow tell that Ramuh gave them his Magicite crystal, and was not murdered for it. It would be odd if Ifrit and Shiva were so on guard that they attacked sight unseen before, but now assume these strangers have the best possible intentions because they’re in possession of their friend’s corpse. But they’re also probably dying, so I should cut them a break. Ifrit tells them Gestahl is trying to drain other Espers of their power, which, duh. “I too, suffered my turn in one of the glass tubes…” he adds. I’m picturing Espers sitting on top of Bunsen burners, percolating into a drink that Celes sips out of a comically long bendy straw. Shiva confirms she and Ifrit have been discarded and are going to die, so they may as well do it on their terms and give these passersby the Magicite goods. A blink later, they are both gone and Mike and Ikes are floating where their bodies just were. “Our friends are all gone…” their ghosts say. “We haven’t much time left… We have no choice but to entrust you with our essences…” Jesus, we get it, you’re summons now. Did anyone think Shiva and Ifrit were going to fly off to be Twiggy’s new babysitters? Come on.
The trash pit has a second doorway, so Kyan takes that one and finds that it leads back upstairs. I am not an architect, an engineer, or an evil dictator, so what the hell do I know, but it strikes me as a poor design choice to have an unlocked door that discarded Espers could just walk through to reach you. Alone they seem pretty pathetic, but who knows what they could accomplish if enough of them marched up these stairs and took turns kicking Kefka in the nuts?
The stairs eventually lead to the actual Magitek Research Facility, the lab contained within the factory. Fine, FOR ONCE this game demonstrates consistency. The team finds itself in a room with half a dozen floor-to-ceiling glass cylinders connected to brass fittings. One of the tubes may be dressed in a fancy pair of goggles and a top hat it swears is from Jules Verne’s estate. None of the chambers are occupied, so not a lot of research is going on in this research facility. Were Ifrit and Shiva the last Esper samples they had in the freezer? Kyan finds a Break Blade in a chest hidden by the southern wall, because I am super smart and know to hug all the invisible walls for free stuff, and not because a guide told me it was there. You can’t prove shit!