We join our hero Benjamin at the bottom of the Hill of Destiny. Sounds like rumbling. Everything's shaking. Sounds like an earthquake.
Apparently, ascending the mountain is the best course of action in the middle of an earthquake. A mysterious old man seems to be waiting for him. Benjamin walks up to him and sparks a conversation.
Old Man: This place is going to sink any second! Lets climb up quick!
He then rushes up the steps and across a narrow gap. Benjamin follows him to the edge.
Finally, got some control over our friend Benjamin. Sure, I can't do anything except press B to jump, but what more could I want?
OH SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT
OH THANK CHRIST. The foreboding old man moves towards the north ledge, and Benjamin follows.
Old Man: An old Prophecy says, 'The vile 4 will steal the Power, and divide the World behind 4 doors. At that time the Knight will appear!' The Prophecy has now come true. 4 monsters have locked the doors of the Focus Tower and escaped with the keys. They're draining the light from the 4 Crystals of the Earth, and the World is in chaos. The people are in desperate need of help. Benjamin, only you can save the Crystals and the World.
Benjamin: Me?
Old Man: Yes, you Benjamin! Only you could be the Knight spoken of in the Prophecy...
You'd think that the world was called "World", considering how every single instance of the word is capitalised. But the capital E on Earth suggests otherwise.
Still, the fact remains: draining light from Earth's Crystals has thrown (the) World into chaos, and now we have to save them all!
So, let's get star-OH FRICK
And now we're in our first battle. Nevermind that we still don't know how to move, lets fight! We're up against a Behemoth. Pay no attention to the menu above. You can't run away from the plot-relevant battle, and "Control" does nothing for now. So we're just going to have to "Battle"!
Most of this menu is a lie as well. We don't have any items, we haven't learned any spells yet, and the enemy always does the same move, so defending is pointless. It takes four hits to kill the Behemoth. After the first two hits, this happens.
It's horns fall off! Every enemy has at least one of these changes, which occur when it takes a certain amount of damage. We keep attacking it, and because the Behemoth only does 6 damage per hit, it can't possibly-
AW HELL NO
Uh huh. The first battle in the game can be lost because of the random numbers.
And here we have the first major deviation from other Final Fantasy titles. If you decide to Give Up, you end up back at the title screen and have to reload, a la almost every other Final Fantasy game. If you don't give up, the battle simply resets to how it was when it started.
So yeah, we have another battle, during which the Random Number God deems me the victor and it doesn't feel like much of an achievement. Afterwards, the Old Man gives some encouraging words.
Benjamin: But you said you were SURE I was the one!
Old Man: Well, actually it was more of a guess...
It is at this point that Benjamin does something bizarre. Something that he will repeat many times throughout his adventure.
Shruging is FINE. Shruging whilst outstretching your arms out to each side is A LITTLE WEIRD BUT OK. Shruging whilst outstretching your arms out to each side and repeatedly closing and opening your hand is RIGHT WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?
You know that film where Keanu Reaves finds our that basically everything is a computer-generated lie? You know the bit where he fights Lawrence Fishburne using Kung Fu? You know that weird "come get me" hand thing Lawrence Fishburne does? It's like that, with both hands, in different directions, whilst raising your shoulders. IT'S NOT RIGHT.
Old Man: It's up to you to find them.
Then some more rumbling happens.
Old Man: This place is becoming dangerous! Follow me to the Level Forest!
The Old Man then flies towards the tower, leaving Benjamin on top of a collapsing mountain. Thanks, guy, you're a great help. I'd almost feel pity for Benjamin if he didn't do the crazy arm thing AGAIN.
Benjamin: Who is that guy anyway?
Seriously. I want a name for that guy just so I don't have to type "Old Man" over and over again.
So Benjamin descends the mountain and ends up on the world map. He walks away from the mountain which promptly completely collapses behind him.
Completely.
Like, from a whole mountain to no mountain at all.
And so Benjamin makes his way to Level Forest.
The greenish-grey arrows mean that we can go to, just not now. Since that's both arrows, we're gonna need to go into the Forest.
Oh, there's that guy!
Old Man: Save the Crystal of Earth. See you!
He then flies off again. Jackass. Also, "the Crystal of Earth"? I thought there were four "Crystals of the Earth"? Now there's only one? I think we can pretty much conclude that this, combined with the "Well it was more of a guess" incident, means that this guy has absolutely no idea what the fuck.
Then Benjamin does the frickin' hand thing AGAIN. We take a look around, and the only thing we can get to is the guy in the top right corner.
Well we kinda need you to move out of the way so we can get pa-ah screw it.
Yes, that's right. We jumped over a man. Because that's reasonable. So we push the boulder out of the way, and the man seems happy.
Man: and show her this.
I can almost imagine her reaction: "WOW I LOVE TREE WITHER OMG HOW DID YOU KNOW?"
So now we can push the boulder further in order to get at that treasure box.
Cure potions are one of only four items we can get in the game, and they recover HP. So, now that we have those, lets go! There's an exit to the right which takes us back to the World map...
...and now we can go to Foresta!
The town of Foresta has been hit by a curse, turning everyone old. Seriously. Kaeli's house is the first (and only) house onscreen when we get into town, so let's just head on in?
Oh, these two women seem to be immune to the curse for no adequately explored reason. I can accept this.
Let's talk to the girl on the left first. "Excuse me, are you Kaeli?"
Kaeli: There's a tree blocking the north end of the Level Forest. I can chop down the tree, but monsters have taken over the forest, and I can't get to it.
Benjamin: I can help you with that. Come on, let's go!
Kaeli's Mom: Don't you dare take Kaeli anywhere dangerous!
Kaeli: Listen, Mom...
Something surprises Kaeli, as indicated by a !! bubble above her head, in an eerie foreshadowing of Metal Gear Solid. Tragically the sound effects are not similar at all.
Kaeli: How much the trees must be suffering! OK, you win.
I like how Kaeli declares Benjamin the winner of the argument when the argument was Kaeli/Benjamin vs Kaeli's Mom so I'm not sure she gets argument. She then goes to collect her axe from the wall. I suppose you don't need to be good at arguing if you have an axe.
"Mom, I am currently holding an axe. If there's anyone you should be worried about it's this guy. What'd you say your name was again?"
Woo! Crazy axe bitch joined! So, on we go!
If you climb into the bed in this house, your party will be fully healed. Note: This is not an inn. This is someone's house.
This house, on the other hand, has more interesting treasures!
Oh thank you!
Oh that's just mean! Why would you put anything there if you actually planned on giving it to people? WHY? So we have to go outside...
...over the bridge, across to the right, jump over the skipping stones, and come in the back door. So what's in the chest?
Ah! Cure! It's a magic spell! I guess now would be as good a time as any to go over the menu. Pressing Y opens it up.
Here it is! Navigate with the pad and press A to use things!
The item menu shows all the items and key items that you have. The Cure Potions that we have are in the top left, with the Tree Wither also shown.
The Spell menu shows the spells that we currently have. On the left side of the screen are the spells that Benjamin currently has (i.e. Cure), and the right side shows the spells Kaeli has (i.e. Life).
Each side is split into three colums, each representing a class of magic (White, Black or Wizard). At the bottom of each column is a number which shows you the number of each type of spell you can cast.
The Armor menu shows you the armor you and your partner have equipped. On the left side of the screen is your armor. There are four different types of armor you can get, and you can get three of each. Only the best of each armor type is equipped. You cannot manually change armor. The right side of the screen shows Kaeli's armor, which also cannot be changed.
The smaller symbols below the defense power when the armor is selected shows the resistances of the armor. Kaeli's Magic Ring provides protection from Silence, whilst her Relica Armor provides protection from water attacks and Petrification.
The Weapon menu works in a similar way to the Armor menu. Unlike armor, the Attack power of weapons increases as you level up.
Your Status menu shows the amount of GP (money) you have, as well as the amount of EXP you have and need to level up. The menu also shows your battle statistics.
The Customize menu can be used to make various changes to the game. I will be changing the Life Indicator from Scale to Figure.
I'll also change the Control to Manual, allowing me to decide Kaeli's actions in battle. This can be changed during battles by pressing Y.
So, now that we're done with the menus, and we've done everything that needs to be done in Foresta, we're gonna go back to the Level Forest!
We arrive in the forest, and Kaeli drags us up to a tree.
"Uhm, OK. Maybe I could just jump ov-"
*THWACK*
Kaeli:We've got to reach the north exit.
Hidden behind the text box was a Brownie.
Fairly easy to defeat. Two hits with a sword, one with an axe. This is why I set Kaeli to Manual. The AI isn't particularly clever see. On Auto, she'd hit the first one. It'd die, and I'd hit the second one. Fine. Next round though, she'd hit and kill the already weakened second brownie (just for the sake of overkill, the crazed loon), leaving me to half kill the third, wasting time and HPs!
On the quest north, we went on a detour towards an item box. Where there were some Slimes. Same as the Brownies really. One with the axe, two with the sword.
When we got there, we found three Heal Potions. These heal any and all status effects. We've only barely started the game and have already encountered half of the items. Go us. We start heading north again.
"Gee, you sure it's the glowing orange one?"
*THWACK*
Monster: Surprise!
She's fallen over and picked up a stutter, because apparently that's what happens when you're poisoned. She pulls it together though, and we launch into a boss battle!
"Hey Kaeli? If he just poisoned you, how come you aren't inflicted with... you know, poison?"
It's not that the boss is particularly difficult. Having a perma-poisoned partner might have made it somewhat more interesting actually. The Minotaur attacks with his axe, but will occasionally Scream. After a few rounds of back-and-forth, probably with at least one use of Cure, he'll go down.
After the fight, Kaeli goes down again. Her mom appears. Somehow she managed to know about the poisoning which just happened.
"Wait hang on, if you didn't know about the poisoning, why are you here?"
Kaeli's Mom: That's in the Sand Temple.
Benjamin: Don't worry, I'll get it!
Kaeli jumps up, making it quite obvious that she's NOT ACTUALLY SICK.
OH HELL YEAH.
And then her mom carries her back to Foresta but we won't miss her because we have her axe now. Now we can swap weapons with L/R and *THWACK* things with our axe. This mostly amounts to "chopping down trees".