Let's Play: Final Fantasy - Part Sixty Seven

 Part Sixty Six

 Masterpost

 Day Twenty Five: To Seek New Life And New Civilisations

 Another day, another first encounter destroyed for me by Odin.

 Thanks Odin, you're a real pal.

"Anytime."

 What I'm attempting to acheive here is completing the UFO side quest. How do I know how to do this?

 It's called a guide.

 Just like I used for Doom Train.

 He's called Doug.

 Frankly, I don't think there's any shame in using a walkthrough for the side quests in this game, they're so... not obvious that there's more than an adequate chance that you could go through the whole game without knowing that they're even there.

 I talked to most, if not all, the NPCs I found, and there was no hint about this sidequest.

 The only hints I've found for this side quest in particular was occassionally seeing a UFO abducting various things.

 In order to get into the necessary fight for this side quest, you need to see the UFO in four different locations. At this point I was certain I'd seen it twice. I knew I'd seen it just outside Winhill and I thought I'd seen it on a beach near Timber.

 However. I had not.

 As a result of not remembering correctly, I ended up running around in a circle in the Kashkabald desert for ten minutes. (Thankfully, I decided to pull the analogue stick off to one side using a hair tie, so I could write some Herd while fundamentally wasting my time.)

 It turned out that I had seen the encoutner in Kashkabald desert, the reason I thought I hadn't is because it was quite some time ago when I saw it, and I was convinced that I'd seen the UFO abducting the Easter Island head.

 Which I had, in a Peanut Butter Gamer video.

 Curse you, Peanut Butter Gamer. Cuuuurse yooou!

 (Although, to be fair to the guy, he shows you all of them, I have no idea why I remembered just that one.)

 After locating the sighting with the weird Sign on an island just off of Trabia's Heath peninsula, I finally determined that I hadn't seen the one on the Timber beach and finally tracked it down.

A close encounter of the second kind.

 During my epic quest, I discovered something else. In order to have Selphie and/or Irvine in your party you have to be right next to the Ragnarok when you try or you can't do it. Try out in the field, nothing. Try inside the cockpit where they both physically are, nothing.

 Nope, you have to stand right next to the ship.

 Which I had to look up, by the way. Once again, this is one of those horribly not-obvious things in this game on top of being rather counter intuitive.

 While heading to the location of the UFO fight, I decided to visit Trabia Garden, where I was asked by a student to help rebuild the school by donating to a fund. However, the second she discovered that Zog was not a student in Trabia Garden, she rejected the donation.

 She claims that it's because Trabia teaches the importance of looking after your own, but I think she just doesn't want my filthy Balamb money, the xenophobic cow.

 To make this situation worse, what's actually going on here is that the school that trains child soldiers wants its students to pay for it to be rebuilt. One of the teachers (who thinks Zog is from Trabia Garden) actually tells him to donate, and the girl asking for donations only just had it occur to her that te faculty should help out too.

 Frankly, it's sickening.

 Another thing I discovered while I was there was the owner of the awful Zog-like jacket.

Too be fair, I wouldn't kneel on that ground either.

 Yeah, I'd assumed the person in the grave was the owner of the jacket, but it's this guy. Apparently, that's his girlfriend buried there.

 When she was alive, he used to lend her his jacket when they spent time together in this area.

 That's... actually quite sad and touching.

 This is how you do being a boyfriend, Zog. Take note.

 After hanging around there for a few minutes, I headed to where the UFO encounter was slated to be.

 On top of a mountain/mesa in the Grandidi forest, north of a Chocobo sanctuary which I don't know how to get to.

 No, seriously, I really have no idea how you're supposed to get into the forest proper, there doesn't seem to be anywhere to land.

 Wandering around here for a few seconds starts the battle, and I'd like to point out that you can have all five of these encounters while having Encounter None on. Which is very helpful, otherwise you'll end up fighting sand worms, land fish and cockatrices all the bloody time.

 Defeating the UFO was really easy, I managed to get it down in a couple of turns, if not just one.

Considering the number of alien invasion movies I've seen, this was a poor idea.

 I'm not sure how I'm supposed to know where this thing landed, but thankfully I had Doug to hand and he just told me.

 You're supposed to go back to the crater where Balamb Garden used to be and that's where you'll run into the alien.

 Here you have two options, kill it, or give it Elixirs.

 I opted to give it Elixirs because I grew up on Star Trek: The Next Generation and as a result absolutely adore aliens. (I also have a far more optimistic view of the future than many of my Nineties Kids compatriots.)

 Also, just look at it, it's adorable!

And so polite!

 Only a monster would kill it.

 Or someone not willing to refine five hundred Remedies into five Elixirs.

 Or someone who doesn't particularly want to use the ability that helping this thing gives you access to.

 See, it will give you somethin called he Hungry Cookpot, which can be used to teach a GF the ability Devour.

 Which is something of a Ronseal ability, the character who has it equipped can eat monsters.

 If I ever decide to use it, I will definitely show you guys.

 For the moment, though, it's time to decide which side quest we'll be tackling next time, in Part Sixty Eight.