Revier's Chronicles of Ivalice - Final Fantasy Tactics, Part 6

Up ahead, a cutscene revealed the desperate situation of the brigands, as they were openly defying their leader's orders under the misguided belief that they had a noble hostage who could buy them some security, if not a large sum of money. Their leader is furious, and vehemently orders them to relinquish their hostage; but news of the duo's approach reaches him, as well as the information that they had killed the leader of the earlier map, who happened to be his sister! Enraged by this piece of news, he decides to personally fight them and their retinue in combat!

He was a considerable step up from all my earlier opponents, being able to freeze and kill my units at range, much like the holy knight in the intro. The team thankfully did have enough damage to beat him, but the fight was only won by desperately concentrating damage on him. Upon his defeat, he fled, but not before revealing that the protagonist's brothers had in fact stirred one of his people into kidnapping the marquis, as he was an obstacle to their political scheming.

By now, the guy behind the abduction had of course fled, but he didn't have many places left to run...the next map was the last stronghold the brigands held in the region, and with the duo's team marching through their back path, they were well and truly cornered.

I decided to risk making the protagonist a monk for this last climactic battle on the path. In the process, I discovered a nasty limitation of the knight's passive skills - only one of them could be active at any point of time! This meant that I could only choose to wield either a shield, sword, or a piece of heavy armor outside of its class. Well, that kind of dashed my hopes of making good use of the thief, though I still planned to use one of them with a sword equipped, as it would likely offset their glaring lack of offensive power.

At the fort, the duo discover something really shocking - not only was Zalbaag willing to attack the fort ruthlessly, he was also willing to overlook the hostage, and employ Algus for some reason! Algus shot both Delita's sister and her kidnapper, and the latter retreated into the fort's storehouse, shocked at how callous his enemies were about the hostage, and determined to take them out with him by blowing up the fort's gunpowder. Before Zalbaag can do anything else, news of the brigands' leader desperately attacking with a small army reaches him, and he leaves, putting Algus in charge.

Algus is of course an out and out bigot at this point, and most of his behavior is him sneering at Delita and lecturing the protagonist on how he needs to recognize the superiority of nobility, and accept scheming for the sake of greater power and benefit. Delita is both angered and saddened, and spends most of his (admittedly very brief) time blindly charging Algus. The protagonist, meanwhile, shakes his head at Algus' bald villainy and tries arguing with him, to no avail.

The fight itself was annoying, partly because it featured two powerful mages, but mainly because Algus could randomly heal himself back upon taking damage, and his three knights did a great job of guarding him on the cramped battlefield, with both their health and their strong strikes. The monk was surprisingly very powerful on the offense, but on the other hand the lack of durability from missing armor was quite noticeable, and made the battle more dicey than it needed to be. It also didn't help that the archer missed his shots on Algus quite a few times. Ultimately I'd say the monk hurt more than it helped, and while this fight was won it was at the cost of several revives and a bunch of frantic footwork. Phew!

That battle marked the end of the game's first act, and it ended with the fort exploding, seemingly taking out Delita with it. The protagonist, completely shaken by the recent turn of events, decided to flee his family, himself turning fugitive. Well, more accurately turning mercenary, as the black knight, Gafgarion, had picked him up into his squad. The narrative finally caught back up to the "present", where he argued about pursuing the princess' kidnapper with the holy knight, only relenting when the protagonist, out of his desire to meet his old friend, sided with her.

Three mediocre looking characters then joined the team, now presumably headed by Gafgarion rather than the protagonist. More interesting was the progress the chemist had made; now he could actually drink ethers, and safely transition into being a white mage! But that will be for next session, as this session ends here. See you all later!