T w e n t y S i d e d
The next Final Fantasy 1 Pixel Remaster session, below the fold:
As I’m sure you all remember, we needed to sail from Pravoca to the Elf City of Elfheim in the Elf Kingdom of Elfheim. This is to start a plot that 8-bit Theater did something wholly other with. I grab a quick level-up to 11, then take my new freely-given boat to explore the sea. I immediately find that the sea creatures are a bit tougher than the land creatures I was fighting, but not so much that I have to grind before moving on. But as my first journey south to Elfheim just about uses up my magic resources, I sail around and use easy access to the Provoca Inn to level up to 12.
I had considered grinding up to 13, but noticed I was 1337 on the character screen at 12, so I just rolled with that.
To reach Elfheim, we sail west from the dock at Provoca until the continent bends Southward. We then follow that coastline until it bends back to the West again. Most likely you will have had around 3 random encounters so far. You will have one more as you sail West along the coast before you run straight into another dock. Elfheim City and Elfheim Castle aren’t too far inland from this location, arranged much like Cornelia was. I accidentally visited the castle first, but I’ll sum everything here up at once.
From townsfolk and the castle, you learn that Astos, King of the Dark Elves, tricked the King of Elf Elves into putting the Elf Elf King’s son, the Prince, into a magical sleep. The Dark Elf King Astos then…I guess stole everything? Except what was locked up using the same mystical key that secures the treasure vault of Cornelia? I guess? Honestly, 8-bit Theater has a better story, twists and all.
The Elf Elf King is in another castle. There’s supposed to be clear clue in Elfheim City or Elfheim Castle to travel to the abandoned, Dark Castle to the Northwest, but the only clue I’ve seen so far is to go West, not Northwest. As I do, in fact, have access to the map, I know where the Dark Castle where the Elf Elf King waits is…and it is definitely a lot more North than it is West. Now granted, you have to go West *almost* as far as you can, then straight North to get there. BUT you can also go a bit further West then *South* which is the direction we will need to go to advance the story after we talk to the Elf Elf King. Maybe I missed something. And honestly, I have read you don’t actually need to talk to the Elf Elf King to solve anything, although there may be other reasons to visit the Dark Castle. In fact, someone *at Elfheim Castle* tells you maybe the sleeping Prince can take some kind of potion…or something…to wake him up from his deep sleep. And *another* person mentions a witch that can brew *any potion you want*…named MATOYA.
And you already know what Matoya is looking for…her glass lens. So we just need to find that. Logically, the Elf Elf King in the Westnorth Dark Castle should tell us where we need to look to…….find Matoya’s lens. The *Elf Elf King* may not look at it that way, but *we* know what we’re doing.
Also, there are dwarves on the Western Edge of the Aldean Sea, wherever that is. Sounds familiar, I think someone mentioned the Aldean Sea last time. The dwarves are nice, I’m told.
I suspect that’s where we’re going after we finish *this* quest.
That’s it for now, see you next week!
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Chainmail Bikini
A horrible, railroading, stupid, contrived, and painfully ill-conceived roleplaying campaign. All in good fun.
Diablo III Retrospective
We were so upset by the server problems and real money auction that we overlooked just how terrible everything else is.
Project Frontier
A programming project where I set out to make a gigantic and complex world from simple data.
Hey it’s back!
I started a run to test the level requirements; you can absolutely just blitz through Pravoka without grinding, but then you get to Elftown and man, you’re not blitzing anywhere in Elfland. Spent levels 2 through 7 there. (Ogres and Spiders and Weres, oh my.)
A little disappointing that Matoya is now “brewing a potion”, instead of just “having the Herb”.
“having the herb…”
It’s been a long time since I played the original translations; I don’t remember that…but I don’t remember much of anything, honestly.
I’ve been trying to make the playthrough as simple and straightforward as possible; there’s only so much writing about ‘grinding’ one can do. At level 10 the area around Provoca is pretty simple…you have to travel quite a ways before you’re challenged. I noticed even just adding one level at sea I elevated a couple of levels of monsters, it seems. We’ll see in the next installment how hard it is to reach the Dark Castle in the Westnorth.