Let's Talk About... Kingdom Hearts 3 and Final Fantasy VII (AKA Sir Long Time Coming and Sir Hype Train)

So... let's talk a bit about Nomura.

 I've made my feeling about the man clear before. However, they have changed.

 Since playing 358/2 Days, I've mellowed on the guy. What he needs is someone to keep an eye on him and put him under some kind of restraint.

 And him being the director of Final Fantasy VII Remake makes me fear that Square Enix hasn't got the good sense to keep him on a leash.

 On the other hand, considering that the designs and the story are already in place, this may just be them using the name recognition he has to push Final Fantasy VII, and it does look good as he worked on the original game.

 It would be hard to fuck this up.

 Very hard indeed.

 I'm hoping that this will be a good experience for him to actually figure out what he needs to do to get a game out in a timely manner, as both Kingdom Hearts 3 and Final Fantasy XV have taken so long that it's been a running joke between Doug and me that they would never be released. In fact, Doug still maintains that Kingdom Hearts 3 won't be released.

 Now, since the Final Fantasy VII Remake is pretty self explanatory (though if they remove the cross-dressing, there will be hell to pay) I thought I'd talk about the Kingdom Hearts 3 trailer that was shown at E3.

 The first thing that really caught my attention was- well, it was that if you were following straight on from KH2, you would be immensely confused as to who the hell to two chess playing people were.

 That's a big problem.

 I let it go for Assassin's Creed, because each number represented a different playable protagonist (until they abandoned numbers all together), but Kingdom Hearts... no. It doesn't really work to have so much of your plot in side games.

 -sigh-

 The second thing is that it doesn't half remind me of Super Mario Sunshine.

 Yeah, I am fully aware of how weird that sounds, but I'm standing by it.

 It's something about the colours, the shown settings, some of the heartless that were featured... (and I see you there, big armoured dudes. I hate you more then life itself. ... But less than the Leechgrave)

 Also, the roller coaster that showed up.

 That really clinched it.

 Yoshi wouldn't look out of place if he showed up, I swear.

 And I mean that literally, not in the 'the game has such a screwed up aesthetic due to the poor execution of the premise that meant we got Johnny Depp and Donald Duck fighting side by side unchanged' sense you might have assumed. Which would be a fair assumption, but not what I meant.

 I just can't shake it now it's occurred to me. This game looks like Super Mario Sunshine.

 The others didn't, not even the first one. The one you'd think would since the sea is involved more in that game.

 That realisation hasn't made me any more or less excited for the game, I'm largely over Kingdom Hearts as a concept since the plot got ridiculous and overly convoluted.

 Right now what I really want is a VII/XIII crossover.

 Also, a Final Fantasy VIII sequel and reboot.

 KTHNX.

Let's Play: Resident Evil 5 (with Raincoat Videos) - Part Three

Let's Talk About... Final Fantaxy XV (AKA Sir Didn't Appear at E3 Again)

 Okay, we knew that it wasn't going to be at E3 this year, but it's still funny.

 It will be at GamesCom, so I'll be keeping an eye out for it there.

 So, Final Fantasy XV... I haven't spoken about this game since January, and since then, I've calmed down a lot.

 The fact that the four playable characters are all dudes has become much less distasteful.

 Largely because, to be completely honest, I was looking for things to complain about due to my absolute derision for Tetsuya Nomura (and we'll talk more about him tomorrow when I've finally watched the Kingdom Hearts III trailer and have had a gander at the trailer for the remake of Final Fantasy VII, because I have thoughts on that as well).

 It's not just that, though, with time and more information it's become clear to me that the all male playable cast of XV isn't there for the benefit of GamerGaiz (that's what Cindy is for), it's there to for benefit of Fujoshis.

 If you aren't familiar with the term, it's a Japanese word that means 'rotten woman' and is applied to girls and women who are really into yaoi.

 Oh yes. This isn't a story about dudebros, this is a story about yaoi archetypes.

 Which has made me a lot happier with the whole concept.

 Hell, I'm embracing it now. I love me some homosexual subtext and this looks to have it in spades.

 So, I went from only caring out of spite to full blown support.

 Partially because of this:

 They've already done this the other way around, and with the resounding success they had with Lightning (the sole reason that there have been three XIII games, and they're thinking of giving her a cameo in XIV to help boost sales), I don't see them having any fears in the future about more female led games, or games with a solely female party.

 (Though all the whining about XV is going to backfire like all hell the next time they do that.)

 There's also the fact that XV is the last of the Nova Fabula Crystalis games to be finished and released, which means that this game, the game with the solely male party, was intended to be a side show for Lightning and the story about her, the lesbians, the kid attempting to avenge his mother, the man attempting to save his son, and Lightning and Snow wanting to save her sister.

 Noctis is Lightning's sidekick.

 Never forget that.

 I think at this point I'm actually starting to look forward to XV, which has shocked me more than anyone, but I think after playing some of 358/2 Days and actually rather liking the story (but not the game play, ugh), I have reason to think that XV may actually be good.

Let's Play: Beyond Oasis - Part Eight (Eternal Reward)

 There have been a surprising lack of Disney's Aladdin references in this Let's Play. I address that in this part.

Let's Play: Anna - Extended Edition - Part Four (Hot Knives)

 I hate this man, I hate this house, I hate this game.

 But I will finish it if it kills him.

Let's Play: Resident Evil Five - Part Two

 In this part I learn that I've been labouring in under a false impression for years about the meaning of 'Ken arms'.

Let's Play: Beyond Oasis - Part Seven (Technical Ease)

 Back with a new Beyond Oasis video that has none of the issues of the older ones, but a new problem of a player who sudden;y has to deal with a massive change in pace.

Let's Play: Resident Evil 5 (with Raincoat Videos) - Part One

 Don't have a title card yet, will sort that out soon.

 My old friend Glen guides me through my first Resident Evil.

 (I'm not very good at it.)

Let's Play: Breath of Fire IV - Part Eight

 Part Seven

 Masterpost

 Day Three: Apple of Her Eye

 I haven't known where my cheapo USB PS2 style controller has been for a while. I even turned over an entire room to find the accursed thing. Turns out I put it in my wardrobe for safe keeping after I bought the XBox360 controller to play Alice: Madness Returns with.

 However, now I've found it, I can finally chase after adorable Kiwi/Tapir/Boar hybrid monsters in the manner that the developers intended and without struggling with the keyboard screaming endlessly in frustration.

I want to cuddle it.

 There's an interesting quick note about the Apples. They are a recurring healing item in the series. I know that doesn't sound that impressive, but it's true.

 In this game you can head butt them from a tree for nothing and they heal for 100 HP a go. It's not a bad deal.

 Right, the thing with the monsters here is that once you've lured then in with an apple, you need to chase after them before their footprints fade. There's not a super huge margin of error here, which is why I failed so badly when I was using my keyboard.

 Additionally, the area is littered with traps laid by Mayor Flynn and his associate. Falling foul of one of those is going to make you lose the monster, so you need to avoid them or spring them ahead of time.

 Amusingly enough, the monster just runs straight through all of them without getting caught.

 Nice job Flynn, master trap maker that you are.

 I baited two stumps, one led me to a chest and the one near the entrance to this part of the forest led me to a new area. Once on the cliff area, going left garners you an AP healing item and going right takes you to the mayor.

 Who is hassling one of the monsters.

Bro. Not cool, bro.

 Of course, he then laughs about how great he is and how stupid the monster is in a classic case of hubris.

 Poetic justice comes for his ass after he says 'how'd you get so stupid anyway? Run in the family?' in the form of a much larger, and presumably mature, version of the monster he just killed.

 Of course, what with this being a video game, Zog and Co are the ones who actually have to fight it instead of the dude who murdered its young and called them names.

 I guess this makes Zog a poetic defence lawyer?

I'd make another Phoenix Wright joke, but Zog's a silent protagonist.

 This one's called Maman, which is the French for 'mum', so I guess this is a she. I'm also kind of guessing it's something of a pun, since she looks more elephantine than her young.

 She was a tough customer, as mothers defending/avenging their young often are, using a body slam move and earth magic to kill the party in order to get at Mayor Flynn.

 Sadly for her and her remaining young, she is defeated.

 Flynn thanks the party,saying that he is in their debt, before asking who they actually are.

 They end up going back to his house and discuss the village and why it's covered in traps.

 During the war with the Fou Empire, the people of Synesta used the tunnel that the party wants to use to escape the Empire and their hex attack. The traps are there in order to help protect the town against attack and to defend the tunnel in order to keep it open for the people of Synesta, should they need to use it.

 I have no idea how he thinks this is going to protect Kyria from the hex cannon, however.

 To be fair, Kyria is just a village, so it's unlikely that the Fou Empire would bother using such a heavy duty attack on it. It would be like nuking Dudley just to screw over the Brummies who fled there when you nuked Birmingham.

 Because hexes are definitely analogous to nukes in this world.

 When Nina asks if they can use the tunnel to travel to Synesta, the Mayor umms, but doesn't ah, as he basically goes 'sure' after a single word's worth of thought.

 The party gets a nights rest at the inn as they wait for him to open up the tunnel the next day.

 Wait, Zog's going to sleep as part of the plot?

 Could that mean...?

 Yes! Yes it does.

 Awesome.

 Fou-Lu here was rescued by a woodcutter who lives in the Zhinga Mountains named Bunyan.

 Bunyan is a reoccurring character in the series, although probably more in the 'Legend of Zelda' or CMOT Dibbler sense rather than actually being the same guy each time. That said, there are very few reoccurring characters in the series, aside from Ryu and Nina I can only think of two or three others, so Bunyan is definitely an anomaly.

 He originally showed up as a fighting woodsman in Breath of Fire II, and as a woodcutter in III.

 The important thing here is that he is a kindly soul who found the severely burned Fou-Lu and nursed him back to health.

 Fou-Lu, being the massive jerk that he is, tries to leave with imperious thanks and ends up collapsing again.

 He also manages to introduce himself in the rudest manner possible, just interrupting Bunyan partway through his sentence.

This is how interruptions are done in this game. Bunyan's text box came
up first.

 It's at this point that I realise that I've been spelling Fou-Lu's name wrong this entire time, so when I'm done with this post, I'm going to have to go back and change it.

 -Sigh-

 Bunyan is up on his history enough to note that Fou-Lu has the same name as the first emperor, and we all chuckle at his adorable naivete.

 At this point the narrative returns to Zog and Co. as Mayor Flynn bids the party farewell.

Well, this explains the parrot.

 Clearly Kyria is inhabited by inexplicable Australians.

 In fact... does everyone in this area have an Australian accent? It's food for thought, and since it's a desert area. Huh, I like this as a head canon.

 Of course, Cray here humorously falls down a pitfall trap.

 Oh, how we laughed.

 With this, we're finally on our way to the last known location of Princess Elina and the investigation can truly begin.

 We'll travel to Synesta next time, in Part Nine!

Bah, Kingdom Hearts

In my defence I said I was back on my feet-ish.

 But today I feel as though I need to rant about 358/2 Days some more.

 I'm not going to go into too much detail, since I am planning to do a review for Fission Mailure on the game, but I really need to let off some steam on the most frustrating part of this game for me.

 So many of the monsters, especially anything remotely resembling a boss, take way too long to kill.

 I'm not kidding, the Infernal Engine took forever to kill, the Emerald Serenade takes way too long and doesn't even attack and now I'm up to the Leech Grave and it's so demoralising knowing how long it's going to kill.

 I tried using fire magic on it, and it doesn't even seem to be doing anything.

 So I'm just here to wait around until it's done pissing about and then take half a green point at a time while just avoiding the tentaclaws.

 I'm actually avoiding playing because I'm so bored by these needlessly lengthy fights.

 It's not even just bosses, or boss like things, the big armoured enemies take ages to kill too. Something which is just made even worse by the fact that magic point blank refuses to go in anything other than a straight line in front of Roxas or maybe a leisurely curve in the correct direction.

 This game is fundamentally a hack-and-slash, or whack-and-bash since the keyblade clearly doesn't have a cutting edge, and such lengthy fights do not serve that format. Especially when the 'special' magic attacks are so imprecise, take such a weirdly long time to allow you to use them again, and don't appear to do anything to certain bosses.

 Not to mention that the lengthy fights do not necessarily lead into interesting parts of the plot.

 It's so mind numbingly dull, yet at the same time is so bloody frustrating.

 Ugh.

Let's Play: Breath of Fire IV - Part Seven

 Part Six

 Masterpost

 Day Two: Dam Parrot

 So, how does one make their way across a mud river dam?

 Well, if you said 'head all the way to the bottom and ask for help from some prospectors' you've probably already played this game. Congratulations on your fantastic taste.

 While heading downwards aimlessly, you'll find this door.

I hate it when sensible workplace practices are enforced.

 The guy who can give the party the key is at the bottom of the dam with the few remaining prospectors.

 I can only assume that the dam was absolutely buzzing with activity before the dragon started acting up, because there's actually a reasonable amount of people still on it. I really like this game for that, it does go to some effort to make the places feel like they're alive and actually functioning areas instead of just giving them the bare minimum of NPCs to make it logical.

 One of the guys is scared of the dragon, but he's got nowhere else to go. Poor lamb.

 Well, wolf, he's a wolf dude. But still, poor wolf dude.

 Right at the bottom of the dam there are a bunch of prospectors, but they're not prospecting for gold, they're prospecting for Aurum.

 Well, okay, that is technically gold, but in this game Aurum is the item used to transfer learned skills from one character to another.

 For example: Say I wanted to give the Burn skill that Zog had learned to Cray (because there's no point giving it to Nina, she can't combo with herself), I could take the skill away from Zog in the skills menu, but to give it to Cray I'd need to go to the save book in the camp and use a piece of Aurum. Since only one character in the party can have a learned skill at any point, Aurum is a vital piece of party management.

 Which leads to far more tactical thinking than 'let's give everyone Firaga to get a good attack stat!!11!!'.

 Square, if you remake VIII, make it more like this.

 Along with the prospectors there's the boss fellow and this guy:

Oh, boy...

 That's not how floods really work, mate.

 He's also the one with the key, which makes me rethink the whole 'sensible workplace practices' thing.

 Of course, you only get the key after the boss guy explains that the party needs to close the sluice gates, travel to the other side of the river over the dam and use a rather rickety looking lift to get back up.

 So, once you have the key, you can head back up and get through the door to turn off the sluice gate. This lets you cross over the gate and further towards the goal of the other side of the river.

 After this there's on more sluice gate to close, but this time, it's not quite working correctly. So guess what that means. Yes, another minigame.

Insert your own dirty joke here.

 This time the goal is to get the wheel going at a good pace before you push the button.

 It was kind of awkward on a keyboard, but far from impossible.

 Apparently something can happen if you make it go fast enough? It hinted at something anyway, but I was waaay too lazy to do that.

 With the second sluice closed, you can pass over it and make your way down to the other side of the river.

 There's a watchtower there and the guy on top of it is keeping watch for the dragon, if it starts to attack the dam, he's going to ring a bell to alert everyone so they can avoid an untimely and muddy. muddy death.

 I dare you to fail to see what's coming.

 Push down a plank to act as a bridge, give the key back to the boss dude and the bell starts ringing.

 Yeah, this was always going to happen. So you need to leg it to the lift and bash the action button to get the lift down in order to avoid a muddy death.

 I kind of panicked and stared at it for a few seconds after I hit the action button for the first time before I got with the programme and managed to get the party to saftey.

 So, did the dam workers and prospectors survive?

Well, I stand corrected.

 Yes.

 Well, that's nice. It's good to have some good news for a change.

 Now, it's important to note that after this point, you cannot return to the dam, so any items you miss, you have missed for good.

 So be thorough.

 After this, the party finds themselves on an idyllic sunset lit cliff top.

They discuss their plans and are interrupted by a dragon.

A very pretty dragon!

 A mysterious member of the Creeping Clan notes that dragons rarely come this close to the shore, and that it appears that their fates are somehow intertwined with the dragon's.

This dragon is the one who destroyed the dam. When asked if this was the case, the mysterious lady restates the idea that dragons don't attack people.

 Right, of course they don't.

 To be fair, I don't think that this one had any intention to hurt anyone. It comes across as though they wanted to get to the shore to meet with the party and the dam was just in the way.

 In many ways, dragons are forces of nature.

 But they do sometimes attack humans. We need to accept this.

 We need to fight back against this false and dogmatic attitude that dragons are wholly benevolent beings. This Dragon's Dogma must end!

 The Creeping Clan lady spouts more cryptic stuff about fate and destiny being intertwined with the dragons' and none of this is really surprising.

 Not even when, after the party has left, she says that the party has a dragon with them. Just in case anyone in the audience hasn't managed to work out that the guy who dreams about Fou-Lu and can turn into a dragon, and has the dragon's eye, is actually a dragon.

 I don't mean that in a 'god, they think the audience is dumb' way. I think they're just making sure, just in case the player wasn't paying attention, or is incredibly slow on the uptake.

 So, now what? what does the party do after they make their way through a mud river dam and meet a dragon?

 Head to a village full of traps, of course!

"Uh, watch out for the bear trap directly behind you. By the way."

 Our goal here is to find the mayor and get permission to enter some dangerous caves to continue the journey to Synesta.

 The thing is, he has a trap attached to his front door which prevents the party from going in to search for him inside, his pet is some kind of bee warrior and the only way into his house is to fall down a pit trap made by one of the villagers in order to go through an underground passageway.

 And he's not even in there!

But he's not in, and that's the problem!

 This bloody parrot.

 This damn, bloody parrot.

 Okay, the problem with this thing is that he knows where the mayor is, but you need to talk him into telling you.

 The thing about this is, despite understanding the inexplicable Aussie dialect, I have absolutely no clue how any of the options I'm given are meant to relate to my goal. I'm just baffled by this whole process, and I have experience with both Aussies and interrogating parrots.

"Objection! Witness is argumentative!"

 After much trial, error and suppressing of ornithocidal feelings, I finally managed to discern that the mayor is in some woods.

 Going there doesn't lead us straight to him, however, as he and an associate were laying traps for some monsters who had moved into the forest, and he managed to get himself cornered.

 So in order to find him, we need to lay some bait for the monster in question and follow it further into the woods.

 Two things about this:

 1. You get given one apple for bait, and after that you need to use Ershin's over world ability to get more from a tree.

 And 2. This is really awkward at the best of times, and I'm still not totally used to the keyboard controls yet.

 So... I'll suffer through this and continue our search for Flynn in Part Eight.

Let's Play: Anna - Extended Edition - Part Three (Racist Woo Merchants)

 I know it's been an age, but here's the next part of Anna - Extended Edition.

Let's Play: Breath of Fire IV - Part Six

 Part Five

 Masterpost

 Day Two: Dragons, Aye

 I totally forgot to talk about how Ershin acts in battle.

 She's very slow, not too magic-y and has high defence and attack.

 She attacks by shooting her fist at people.

 Badass.

 Anyway, back to the plot.

 They meet back up with Cray, and it turns out that the item we found in the Sandflier Valley that was called the Sandflier Parts weren't actually parts, we really needed to get that guy to make the parts we needed.

 Which kind of sucks.

 But, oh well, Nina and Cray are back together and everyone's safe.

 There is a mildly creepy moment where Ershin tells them that Ershin says it appears as though their sandflier was attacked by a dragon.

 They're understandably shocked by this, and asks how she knows this, but Ershin just replies that Ershin appears to be able to sense these things. Also, that she's sleepy.

 Okay, I get that the way I talk about Ershin's dialogue is kind of annoying, but I really want to get across how she usually speaks in the third person, but doesn't always. When she was laughing in the last part, she didn't say 'Ershin shouldn't have laughed', she said 'I was in error'.

 She's got such a unique speech pattern that I really want to make it clear how she talks. (By the way, Ershin is a great way of showing how you can have a character with a repeating speech pattern without giving them an annoying and repetitive catchphrase *coughAxelendcough*.)

 Cray, being the gentlemanly cat-dude that he is, offers them a place to stay for the night since they were so helpful. Then this happens.

???

  According to Cray in the cut scene, this is where someone, presumably the Fou empire, is holding Elina.

 In their attempt to find her, they make their way through a literal dungeon, while fighting some enemies.

Not pictured: the bloody corpse of Anastasia Steele

 Weirdly, there's this pretty palatial room not too far from the dungeon itself, it almost looks like some kind of throne room, or somewhere else that a monarch or emperor would hold court.

 Once they get in there, a couple of people appear, including this guy.

This is not a good sign.

 He's told by the guy in green that it continues to grow, and that is also not a good sign.

 The hat trick of bad signs continues when Lord Yuna says that he is greatly pleased by this. Nothing good ever comes of people being 'greatly pleased'.

 In order to sneak past these two, the gang head behind this convenient curtain between a chair and the wall. Once they get to the other side, there's a pretty cut and then we go to Nina and Cray talking about what's just happened.

 It turns out that they both had the same dream, and Ershin adds that Ershin says that it was Zog's dream.

 Apparently it was caused by something called the 'Dragon's Eye' and it's a possible future. From this, Cray asks if Zog can get them to the place they saw in the vision, which Ershin replies to with her customary 'apparently so'.

 They quickly run this by Zog, because why not, and he's totally cool with it, because he has nothing better to do and these are nice people.

 I've genuinely seen media, where in this exact kind of situation, they wouldn't just tell the person in Zog's shoes what was going on for the sake of forced drama later on. Good on Capcom for not pulling that crap here. Especially because that's really hard to pull off when the person who feels betrayed never has dialogue that that audience can see or hear.

 Since they can't get the sandflier to work again. they need to head out one foot. Cray comes up with a plan that has them hugging the coast and heading north.

 On the way I ran into one of my favourite enemy strategies in the game. It's called 'Command' and it has one of the enemies, like a Red Cap, commanding other enemies to attack a specific party member.

 I mostly like it because after the reticule targets a party member the subordinate enemies do this:

D'aww.

 It's adorable.

 On the way north is a place called Kurok, it's just a valley, but there is an interesting guy there named Rwolf.

I said he was interesting, I never said he was nice.

 He's one of the Masters in the game who teach various skills and can affect how the characters level up. This was a feature in Breath of Fire III, and I really like it.

 It's a bit like the Strength Bonus I always had on Zell and then had on Nina in my Final Fantasy VIII, but less awkward and I don't have to make a decision between that and a stat boost.

 Also, if you fulfil this dudes requirements, you get some awesome spells.

 After Kurok, they make their way to a dam that's damming some kind of... mud river?

 It's a bit weird, but I also still kind of like it.

 In order to continue their journey, they need to make their way across to the other side of the river.

 Usually, there are a lot of people on the damn, but at the moment there are some serious problems that they're having with a dragon who lives in the area. Normally he minds his own business and swims near the bottom of the river, but recently he started acting really strangely and is threatening the structural integrity of the dam, so most of the workers on the dam legged it.

 Fortunately, there's no problem with them making their way across, so with a warning to be careful from a friendly dam worker, they head on their way.

 We'll carry on with the journey next time, but I really want to show you guys a cool thing about the battle mechanics in this game.

 Since we have more then three members of the party now, we can't use all of them in battle in a single turn. However, because of the way the battle system is set up, we can switch between the person in the back and one of the others in the front while giving commands.

 Which is far preferable to the weird and totally arbitrary way in which party member swapping was set up in FFVIII.

 The other bonus to the battle system is that the entire party gets experience at the end of each battle.

 Also, you aren't forced to have Zog in the battle party at all times.

 They managed to separate the battle party from the field party enough so that he's always in the field party, but you aren't forced to have him always with you, meaning that if he gets knocked out and you can't revive him, he's not taking up valuable space.

 Thank the gods.

 There are also advantages to having party members in the back in battle, they can restore their AP incrementally over turns, and they can assist the battle.

 Here's Ershin's assist move:

That's a gross name for a monster, by the way.

 Badass. I love it.

 So, we have some dam traversing and dragon dodging to do next time, in Part Seven.

 See you then.

Let's Play: Breath of Fire IV - Part Five

 Part Four

 Masterpost

 Day Two: The Chamba of Secrets

 So, what is the inside of the hexed Chamba like?

Ah.

 By the way, there's a feature in this game that allows you to use a character's abilities in the field. This has been a feature in the series since the beginning. After a certain point in the first game, Nina gains the ability to turn into a giant bird and carry the party around the world map.

 In comparison, Nina flying up to give a bird's eye view of an area isn't as cool, but is still pretty handy.

 On top of being filled with this creepy black mist, the area is swimming with undead enemies.

 Zombies, ghosts, giant skulls who emit poison, the works.

 So, why is the inside of the hexed area like this?

 Well, according to a rumour that the purifiers will tell you, the hex is created by sacrificing a person.

 Considering the undead monstrosities, I can believe it.

 Getting through Chamba isn't such a problem. It's a bit of a maze, but nothing particularly challenging. There are also a handful of chests that are reasonably easy to find.

 So far, so morbid and creepy.

 Once you've made your way to the next part, there's a puzzle. It involves swapping between Nina and Zog and Ershin.

 Why?

 Well...

 You can see the delineation between the part with the hex mist and the part without, as Ershin has a protective armour suit, she can safely go into the hex mist without having her soul immediately sucked out.

 So, in order to get Nina and Zog through this section safely, they need to travel across the rooftops, which involves Ershin getting on the box to the left soe that the other two can go over the box on the right.

 You switch between the pair and Ershin by pressing the select button. Which would be fine, but I'm playing on PC with a keyboard (still haven't found that controller yet). So I spent about five minutes going through the settings to see which key that was, failing, staring forlornly at the screen and trying every key on my keyboard bar F9 (because that's how you quit back to the main menu). Eventually, though, I did manage to work out which key it was, turns out that it's F1.

 After mucking around on boxes to get everyone over to the far side of the area (and grab two chests), the group finds a valve.

Capcom doesn't when it comes to this series.
-seethes-

If the two levers are pulled at the same time, the mist will be drained from the area so Nina and Zog can make it through without dying horrible poisonous/magic deaths.

 From here we end up in another rooftops upon a sea of death section and have to carefully make our way across. The problem with this section is that there are spoopy noises that freak Nina the crap out.

 Ershin says that's it's to be expected, because the hex is a person's fear, hatred and anger given form. As long as it's just sounds, they're fine.

 That's how she talks, by the way, she mostly speaks in the third person. Ershin says this, Ershin says that, Ershin thinks... and when asked for confirmation, she always says 'apparently so'. It's really weird and really interesting.

 Shortly after they hear the sounds, they see this majestic beast.

That's... not sounds.

 It's the evil power of the hex given physical form, that wants you dead.

 (Something that Ershin laughs at until Nina asks why she thinks them being killed by a skulfish is so funny.)

 Since it's following them, the group needs to run away, which is shown by Nina and Ershin just legging it and Zog following them while I furipously tap the c key.

 Thankfully, I'm pretty good at bashing buttons constantly in order to get things done in video games at this point, after all, I did beat Twilight Princess and you do have to do some button tapping to beat the final battle in that. (I am much worse at swinging a wiimote rapidly, which is why I had something of a stress breakdown while fighting Girahim for the last time in Skyward Sword.)

 So, with Zog out of harm's way, that's it, right?

 Well, no. This is a video game, have you ever played a video game where they let you out of a dungeon without some kind of boss battle?

 That's what I thought.

 So, unsurprisingly, our skeletal fish friend here leaps from the hex mist once more and attacks.

 This is where my game crashed.

 Not that getting through Chamba is a great challenge to begin with, but it was a little annoying.

 It was also something of a boon, because I'd been horribly overusing Nina's healing spell and forgot that I didn't have any AP restoring items to use on her before the boss battle. So when I got through the second time, I was sure to not do the thing I just told you about.

 So, here we are.

 Fighting the fear, hatred and anger of a sarificed human being given physical form.

 What's the first thing to do?

 Turn into a dragon, of course!

 Just like Fou-Lu, Zog can turn into a dragon. In fact, he couldn't do this prior to Fou-Lu awakening and being able to turn into a dragon.

 I think we can all see that something fishy is going on here.

 (Apart from the boss monster, obviously.)

 There's also one other thing if you're not catching my drift.

Look familiar?

 Yeah...

 Fun fact, by the way, the dragon form in this game works by slowly whittling down Zog's AP, and once he runs out, he reverts to normal.

 This is much better than what Breath of Fire II did, which was you lost all of your AP in one big dragon based attack. It was really annoying.

 This is also less OP than the first game was, because there's a limit to how long you can stay in this form.

 On top of regular attacks, he also has a series of attacks that use AP, thus causing you to have to decide what the best use of his AP is.

 One of these, Hwa, is a fire spell that can be used in conjunction with Nina's Sever to create a more powerful version of the Firewind effect gained from using Sever and Burn together.

 It's cool, I like it.

 After the Skulfish is defeated, it twitches as it sinks back into the hex mist and Ershin explains that the malice contained in the hex cannot be so easily dissipated, it will eventually reform.

 Nina feels oddly sad at defeating the skulfish and says that the hex is horrible. Which it totally is.

 In response, Ershin says this:

 Geeze, thanks for the sympathy in this difficult time, Ershin.

 After this enlightening conversation, the group leave Chamba at last and Nina thanks Ershin for helping them.

 Much to her and Zog's surprise, Ershin says that Ershin wishes to accompany Zog on his journey.

 Despite being weirded out by Ershin from the very moment they met her, they don't mind her coming along, and the three head out of Chamba and back to where Cray has been waiting for Nina this whole time.

 Which we'll cover next time, in Part Six.

Let's Play: Breath of Fire IV - Part Four

 Part Three

 Masterpost

 Day One: Don't Bomb Finland

 So, off to Sandflier Valley. It's down to the south, and is a bit of a mess.

 There are bits of dead sandflier all over the place, and strewn amongst them are chests with items in. One of which is in an area blocked off by a sandflier rudder.

 You also need to move this to get through to the next area.

It's kinda cute, I like it.

  After this there is a ship with an anchor, and to use this you need to move the winch to make the anchor go down, and then stand on it.

 For whatever reason, the anchor goes back up, despite there being no one to operate the winch and make it go back up.

 And it's just an anchor! It's not like there's some fancy sensor on it or anything.

 It's a small thing, but it's kind of bugging me.

 On the other side of this is yet another mini game!

 Woo!

 You do need to do this, but unlike the plying and bribing dudes for information ones, you can actually do this one a whole bunch and it is worth doing.

 The basic gist of this mini game is that you need to hire a shovel and a dog. You could just hire the shovel, but you really need the dog because otherwise you're literally just guessing at where stuff is and you have a limited number of goes.

 Hire the dog and it wanders around a small yard, barking at certain spots before heading back to its master.

 You need to remember where the spots are and then go and dig there in order to find items.

This is an item called a 'Molotov'. Vyacheslav Molotov
will never live the bombing of Finland down. And he's dead.
So there's a life lesson: don't bomb Finland.

 I'm not going to lie, since I have this game on PC, I totally drew on my screen to make this easier.As you can see, there's not a hell of a lot landmarks on this screen to make remembering where the dog stops. (Pro-tip: draw with something that won't damage your screen. I used a coloured pencil really gently. And wiped it off straight afterwards.)

 It's a bit like those Blockhead demons in Okami, but with only ever three spots to remember and teetering on the line of much easier than Blockhead Grande and much harder than most of the other Blockheads entirely because the dog is so slow.

 Oh hey, another Capcom game. What is it with me and Capcom?

 I'm pretty sure that you'll find the sandflier parts on your first go, as long as you get all three of the spots the dogs marks out for you. Apart from that, it's random items of varying levels of usefulness.

 Still fun though.

 Okay, there is one kind of strange thing about all this. Mostly that the trader in Sarai said that he needed the materials to make the parts for them, but you actually get a set of sandflier parts from the valley.

 However, considering what happens when they return to Sarai, this makes more sense.

 Upon returning to the Sarai tavern to meet up with the sandflier merchant, it turns out that the Fou Empire has sent a squad of soldiers there.

 They're led by a blonde dude with too much mascara on his lower lashes who is questioning the merchant from the beginning of the game about the monster he saw. (Which is probably Zog.)

 As you can see, he's a complete douche.

 Nina does not stand for this and rushes to the merchant's side, demanding to know why the blonde dude is a being such a dick and pointing out that the war has ended.

 A matter in which she's actually incorrect.

 What happened in the case of the war was actually a ceasefire, not an end to to the war. Wars generally end with treaties of some kind, but this war does not seem to have had this happen.

 After telling her this, the blonde guy seems to realise that she's a Wyndian, which... she has wings, bro. How did you not notice before?

 I get the not immediately recognising that she's a princess, but her wings are a dead give away as to her race/nationality.

 Since such a ripe opportunity does not present itself every day to an ambitious military officer, he decides that they're going to capture her too. A statement that Nina takes as him knowing something about her sister.

 To his, still admittedly douchey, credit, the blond guy summons a Warrior Spirit to fight her. So he is taking her seriously as a potential threat.

 Nina ends up fighting this monster on her own.

This is a cool looking monster, btw.

 Since she's not got the best physical attack,  a good strategy is to spam Sever here until Joh falls over.

 By the way, when Nina uses this spell, she says the name out loud. However, they clearly just wrote this on a piece of paper and put it in front of a Japanese actress without any kind of pronunciation guide, because she says it 'Seever'.

 It's adorable.

 Since she just took out a boss on her own, it's understandable that Nina is a little... tired. So Zog rushes in to her defence.

 Our foe here tries to belittle Zog by talking about knights and princesses and how Zog didn't rush out earlier.

 While doing this, he says this:

 I bring it up because... I don't know, it kind of looks like a subtle homophobic comment.

 It probably isn't, to be fair. Just a really odd way of phrasing a cowardice insult.

 Either way, this guy is a total dick.

 He ends up getting a bit of sword in his eye when Zog hits something so hard that it actually snaps the King's Sword.

 While he's reeling from that, Nina and Zog make good their escape, soldiers hot on their heels when the blond guy yells what we're all thinking at times like this.

The Fou Empire has two kinds of soldier: Elite and utterly incompetant.

 They manage to escape their pursuers through the time honoured tradition of hiding down a side passage from people who logically must have seen them go down there, but for some reason never follow them. Possibly they're like those things that we had at school and you prgramme to go around, and they were programmed into a straight line.

 After the soldiers have headed off, the merchant from the crater appears and advises them to head to Chamba so they can circle around the troops and get back to Cray without risking being captured because they helped him earlier.

"By the way, you can keep the clothes you got from my wagon,
they look good on you."

  There is a problem though, Chamba is a hexed area, and therefore can only be safely passed through by purifiers. People with special armour to protect them who work to clear the area of the hex.

 I'll go into more detail on the hex when they actually go into it in the next part, but for now it's enough to know that it's incredibly dangerous.

 The leader of the purifiers, a hot Grassrunner named Tahb, tells them that the only way that they can get through the hexed areas of Chamba safely before next year is if they can talk one of his workers into guiding them through.

 Unsurprisingly, they can't.

 While talking to him about this, there is this section where the camera approaches them like a monster in a horror movie and just after he says they're lucky that monsters don't just bust through the gates, something bursts through the gates.

 It isn't a monster though, according to Tahb it's a woman named Ershin. She is heavily armoured and agrees to help Nina and Zog through the cursed areas of Chamba. Tahb attempts to talk her out of it, but she basically intimidates him into letting her.

 She also speaks in the third person and when she is thanked for agreeing to help them, she says this:

Um, thank you Ershin?

 Yeah, she's more than a little scary.

 We'll get to see her in battle next time, in Part Five.