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Chapter 30: Something Warm
”Where ecks-defff?”
”I want to look for ecks-deff.”
“We beat Exdeath!”
”This the end of your game?”
“This one, any way,”
”Why they all here now?”
“We were fighting Exdeath here, but now we won and everyone is getting up.”
”What they doin?””
“They’re fixing the crystals!”
“The crystal is fixed!”
”It’s fixed?””
”And that one too?”
“And the fire crystal!”
”Fire crystal?”
“Everything is coming back!”
”They’re getting out of the void?”
“Looks like everyone’s okay!”
”They all back! Grandpa!” 
They give their speech and swoop out. I explain that they’re gonna help us get out and go off on their own adventures.
”Dragon! 
“Grandpa and the kid got a letter from Krile!”
”We got outta there!”
”We gotta stay here.”
“The dragon brought us back home!”
“What are those called?”
”Chocobos.”
“They’re Moogles. What are they called?”
”Chocobos.”
What can you do.
“Lenna and Faris are back home too. This is where the party was!”
“What’s that?”
”Chocobo-bo.”
”And our dragon!”
“Hey what’s happening here?”
”Chocobos!””
”Baby chocobos! And they came from eggs!”
“We’re remembering the things we did.”
”Fightin’ Ecks-Deff!”
“We fought him with the turtle!”
“And when we were fighting the wolf guy!”
”And you got him!”
“And the big tree!”
I say “Boom!” as she breaks through the wall.
“And this is when she helped us out!”
”She fighting Ecks-deff?”
“That’s the King of Tycoon. She knocks Exdeath out of him.”
“She’s thinking about her grandpa!”
“Remember this part? On the bridge?”
”The battle on the Big Bridge!”
”Ecks-deff!”
“This was when grandpa saved Krile and fought Exdeath alone! And won, of course.”
“Everyone’s here!”
“Birds!”
”Birds!”
“They think they hear Grandpa!”
“What those down there?”
“Flowers bloomed!”
Something about the Crystal theme and these endings always gets me a little choked up. Nostalgia, I guess.
”Chocobos!
”Birds flying!”
I point out that these are the names of the people who helped make the game.
”Those chocobos?”
“They’re riding them! Our magicians!”
”Grass there?”
“Lots of it.”
He loves the riding bit.
”They running!”
”Why they runnin- Dragon!”
“Because it’s fun! The world is safe so they can run around, like how you ride on your bike.” Well it is push trike but still.
”Why there three chocobos?”
“I think they’re Boco’s kids. It’s been a year so they’re grown up enough to ride.”
The credits roll more. I try to briefly explain what some people did in terms a 3 year old would understand. He drew the pictures for the spells. He made the noises for them. He drew the bad guys. Then at the end
“And you!”
”And -me-?”
“And you- for playing the game!”
Krile ended up being an anchor to the team because her white mage costume has cat ears. Before that Galuf was probably the team member saddled with the weirdest and most underwhelming collection of powers. I was bolting Black3 onto whatever he got, with his stint as his dancer probably being the roughest part of the game for me. Eventually he became a Mystic Knight which was going places, then the cat. After that we were black mages long enough to get all the good spells, and of course in the end a Knight. Nothing was going to compete with !White6 as a secondary ability.
Faris was one of the cornerstone characters of the game, having been a ‘Long Magician’ long enough that I could staple !Blue on to whatever build she got. She spent a lot of time bouncing around until around Moore, where she ended up being a Samurai until the end of the game. Mostly she ended up with a small amount experience in several spell casting jobs, with level 3 in White and Black, 2 in Summoner, 2 in Red and 1 in Time.
”We fighting him? Where we fighting him again?”
“Looks like on a big book. We’re just remembering. We might fight him again another time though.
Lenna was a clutch team member for pretty much all of the game due to her extended time as a Unicorn Magician. She had some eclectic job choices of course. Ninja, Dragoon, Monk. Her long stints as a Ranger and as a Magic Knight (another key job for her). She was a Blue Mage long enough to get Learning, which was convenient. Being a Summoner though was the best, and dragged our butts through several fights.
”He fighting Ecks-deff? What he name?”
“That’s Bartz.” He does not even register the rabbit.
”What he look like?”
“He’s a green magician.
Bartz went through most of the game as a physical character, one way or another. He started as a Knight, then went through a lot of weird class changes. Having !Control off of beast master was handy, but a lot of his classes didn’t leave him much to carry over. He kept Gaia as a 2nd for awhile, through his Samurai, Dancer and Dragoon phases. Once he got !RapidFire though that was pretty much all he did.
“These were OUR magicians! They beat the game! They won against Exdeath!”
He happily asks me what each of their names are, several times. It’s their last hurrah for this run, so I of course tell him enthusiastically each time. Our green magician, our samurai, our unicorn magician and the knight.
“What’s that say?”
”The end? The end.”
“We did it!”
”We got to the end of your game?”
“We did! We won! High five!” he does so.
”I want to tickle you!”
There are hugs.
In closing this was a pretty fun experience, though if not for the fact I was doing this in part for my kid I might not have finished it (obviously I never would have started a Lets Play #3YORisk). There is an odd pressure to get the updates written up quickly, before the memory of the dialogue can fade, or before you forget what your own notes had meant.
I didn't grow up playing FFV. It came later when it was on the GBA. The SNES FFIV and FFVI were my real Final Fantasies, (And Dragon Warrior 3 for the NES my first real RPG) and I played them when they came out. The sprite art holds a power and charm that later games just don't seem to have to me. Part of it is probably nostalgia. I'll probably introduce him to IV and VI when he's a few years older, if he's interested. In the meantime we'll probably still muck about with FFV or whatever game he might notice me playing. I hope he'll remember this hole thing fondly as well. And if not, well, there ought to be an LP to jog his memory.
Thanks for reading.
~The End~