Sure enough, a short trek to the south leads to the aforementioned cavern. It’s actually called the Ice Cavern, as we see from the text that pops up when we approach it on the overworld map. Once again, the game designers are trying to make the game very different from Final Fantasy VIII, which had a [Fire Cavern]. Those tricky game designers!
“Have you ever heard of the Ice Cavern?” PUGGY!! asks the others at the entrance. Why, yes, I have. I heard about it from the little label on the cavern itself right before I pressed the X button. Also, it’s full of ice, and it’s a cavern, so it only seems logical……anyway, there’s some exposition about the Ice Cavern. Zidane, PUGGY!!, and Garnoa try to figure out if they are truly in the Ice Cavern. Oh, this is so unnecessary. And they even have an extra clue: it’s supposedly near Evil Forest. Well, no shit, Sherlock, I think this is the place. These people are dumb. Luckily, PUGGY!!’s grandfather gave him all sorts of handy information before he died, and so now we know all about how the cavern leads out of the Mist. Well, thank God.
Once the scene is over, and they all enter the cave, the camera pans up and the location text appears: “Ice Cavern”. Thank you so much, game designers.
If you are a music composer, and you need to compose background music for anything involving ice, you should use xylophone-type instruments. I think it’s a rule.
Good God, I was right.
Inside the cave, Garnoa is impressed by its beauty, and gushes that seeing it is better than reading about it. This is pointless, except to reiterate that she has been sheltered her whole life and all that other stuff we already figured out ten times already. After a bunch of walking around and fighting random battles, Zidane and company find a wall made out of ice. The thing that makes this wall of ice different from most of the other walls of ice in the Ice Cavern is the fact that there’s a treasure chest frozen inside. Zidane quickly figures out that PUGGY!! can melt the wall with his fire magic. There are other such walls scattered around the Ice Cavern, and every single time the party encounters one, Zidane says “Huh? What’s this?” and when PUGGY!! melts the wall, Zidane yells, “Whoa!” You’d think that he might figure out that a) It’s a meltable ice wall, and b) He should stand back when PUGGY!!’s using magic, but alas, he never does. This serves no purpose whatsoever in the plot, it’s just supposed to be cool or something. Emphasis on “or something”.
Despite their cute and friendly appearance, moogles can actually be quite foul-mouthed and rude. I approve.
In another room, there is a Strategically Placed Moogle trapped in a block of ice (Huh? What’s this?) and PUGGY!! uses his magic to free it (Whoa!). Then, joy of joys, there is an ATE called “‘Teach me, Mogster!’ Lesson 2”. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out what it’s about, so I won’t waste your time.
Outside the cavern, a furious blizzard rages. PUGGY!! is having trouble keeping up with the others, and as he stumbles along, he falls over the edge of the path onto a ledge below. Adelbert goes to check on him and he, too, falls over the edge. Zidane realizes that they’ve both fallen unconscious. He kicks Adelbert a couple of times to try to wake him up. Thank Jeebus that Adelbert is unconscious. I enjoy the sweet sweet sensation of not having to read more inane Zidane-bashing or Princess-obsession dialogue. My will to live is returning. Zidane climbs back up the ledge (conveniently, there just happens to be a couple of ladders built into the rock) to find that Garnoa, too, has passed out. And then – you guessed it – Zidane falls asleep. What’s going on?
We find out soon enough. A jingling bell wakens Zidane, and he goes in search of what made such a fearsome sound. He ends up at the base of a frozen waterfall. At least, that’s what I think it’s supposed to be. “Why didn’t you fall asleep?” a voice asks from the top of the cliff. Well, technically, he did fall asleep, but…never mind. The camera pans up to show a big PUGGY!! with wings. His name is given as “Black Waltz No. 1”, and I’m going to make a wild guess that there will be more than one Black Waltz, else why number them? Duh. I like the name “Winged PUGGY!! No. 1” better, though. “You should be dead by now,” Winged PUGGY!! No. 1 continues. That makes no sense. “Are you the one causing this blizzard?” Zidane asks. Well, duh. WP#1 jumps down in front of Zidane and confirms that he is, indeed, the cause. And he rings this dorky little bell. I’m not sure what the point of that is, except to be annoying. It’s certainly not the least bit menacing. Maybe if it were one of those gigantic, deafening cathedral bells, I might be scared. But I suppose that would be kind of hard to carry around.
It’s the tiny jingle bell….OF DOOM!!!
A battle ensues, of course. A boss battle. And Zidane’s all alone. This sucks ass. Winged PUGGY!! No. 1 calls upon a big, mutated sea lion, creatively named “Sealion”. During the battle, WP#1 rings his little bell to cast spells. Okay, dude, seriously. Lose the bell.
After the battle, the blizzard has stopped, and the waterfall is going again. Oh, so it was a waterfall. Go me. An offscreen voice says, “You defeated No. 1, but No. 2 and No. 3 will reclaim the princess!” Oh, I didn’t see that coming. Zidane says “Oh, whatever…” and walks off. The camera pans up to show us who was speaking. I think it was the jesters, Zorn and Thorn, but there’s barely enough detail to actually tell who’s up there. Way to go, game designers.
Zidane joins the others again, and they’re all awake. Adelbert demands to know what just happened, but Zidane lies and says that nothing happened. Everyone knows he’s lying. “You…didn’t touch the princess, did you?” Adelbert asks. Yes, Adelbert, Squaresoft decided to make their lead male a date rapist. Zidane gets pissy, and Garnoa smooths things over.
At the top of the path, Zidane and the others reach the exit to the Ice Cavern. “We made it through the Mist!” Garnoa exclaims happily. It’s all sunny and stuff outside. They spot a village below, and Zidane remembers visiting it at some point in the past. Just in case we all hit our heads and forgot that Garnoa has lived a sheltered life, she reminds us that she’s only visited other worlds through books. If Zidane busts out a magic carpet and starts singing “A Whole New World”, I’m going to turn off this game.
Finally, somebody said it.
Garnoa starts down the path, but Zidane stops her. He says that she won’t be able to remain inconspicuous, with her formal speech and her actual name. Adelbert spouts some more of the same old crap, Zidane argues with him, and I cry. Garnoa picks up the dagger that Zidane dropped and looks at it. I think about how I could kill myself with it and not have to read any more crappy dialogue. Garnoa cuts the arguing short. She wants a new name. “Zidane…What is this called?” she asks, holding up the dagger. Okay, I know she’s sheltered, but I think she’d know what the hell a dagger was. “So this is called a ‘dagger’…I’ve decided! From now on, my name is…Garnoa.” Sure, the default name was Dagger, but I don’t care. I just rendered the conversation completely pointless and nonsensical. Hey, if the game designers can do it, so can I.
The next part of Garnoa’s identity switch involves teaching her not to speak as formally. It’s kind of a cute conversation, but I can’t really see people in a medieval setting using “Alrighty” as an informal version of “I shall try.” After Garnoa repeats that one phrase, Zidane is all happy at her progress. Yeah, that must have been difficult. Apparently, Zidane doesn’t think that Garnoa will ever have to know any other phrases besides “Alrighty”, because he decides it’s time to go to the village. I wish he’d been one of my profs in college. Class would have lasted one day a semester.
I don’t believe this, but I survived the recap. I shall now go and drink heavily. Alrighty?