Leaving Lindblum, our first stop is Qu's Marsh, one of the places we saw from the telescope on top of Lindblum castle last time, where we actually find Mogster. It seems I was wrong bout not being able to repeat previous tutorials, I just wasn't paying close enough attention at the time. Either way, I stand by putting these tutorials in some kind of help menu accessible anytime would be a better implementation, as the Mogster ATEs at the very least interrupt the narrative flow of events and can't be accessed on demand when new players actually need them.
More importantly, we met Quina, who is a Qu, which is a creature best described as the obese lovechild of Lickitung and an evil jester who was adopted by Little Miss Moffet. We give... it? a frog to eat and can apparently add birds to that list of things Qus are made of, because now that Quina's picked up our scent, mama Qu's kicking it out of the nest. I really have no idea why we would accept this thing into our party. Even if it didn't look like something parents would buy their kid so they could laugh at the child's nightmares, Quina is an idiot manchild, and we're heading into a warzone.
For a little bit of added weirdness, Vivi says that Quina's master, Quale, looks exactly like the grandfather Vivi mentioned back in the Ice Cavern. Quale, however, denies all knowledge of that weirdo from his own tribe.
Besides being generally weird, Quina's kind of a pain to use. Quina is a blue mage, which means that it learns its magic by copying it from monsters. Blue mages appear in several Final Fantasy games, but aren't nearly so ubiquitous with the series as either black or white mages, or even red mages, and their methods of learning magic vary from game to game, the most common method being to get hit by the spell in question during combat. Quina, on the other hand, pulls a Kirby. And, because Quina can only eat a monster once it has been brought to critical health, trying to feed Quina quickly becomes an exercise in frustration.
Further, one of Quina's spells is dependent upon a frog-catching minigame in the various Qu's Marshes around the world, starting right here. The more frogs you catch, the more powerful the ability, and Quale will apparate in from nowhere to reward Quina with items at certain milestones. I think this is how you get Quina's ultimate weapon. I also seem to recall that if you leave at least one male and one female frog in the same pond they'll repopulate over time, but I intend to use Quina as little as possible because it scares the bejeezus out of me it's of limited use in battle due to how it learns spells, so I'm not really going to bother with the frog catching.
Now for the far more enjoyable sidetrack, chocobos. Heading to the perfectly round forest seen from the telescope, we find a moogle named Mene playing tag with a chocobo named Choco.
And in the next forest we'll meet Beary the Bear, Squirrely the Squirrel, and Chickadeey the Chickadee.
Anyway, Choco gets scared and runs off, so Mene teaches us how to summon him by using gyshal greens when we find chocobo tracks in the overworld. Bringing Choco back to the forest, Mene introduces us to another minigame: Chocobo Hot and Cold. It's pretty much exactly what it says on the tin: it's the classic "hot and cold" game played on a chocobo. Items are buried around the forest, and Choco's "kewhs" will let you know how close you are to the item. Zero in on the item, and then dig it up. Besides finding normal items, you can also find treasure maps which open up a sidequest of Hot and Cold in the overworld for bigger treasures. Finding items with Hot and Cold also accumulates points depending on the rarity of the item, which can be redeemed with Mene for items and equipment. The game costs 60 gil for 1 minute of searching, and for me at least, it's addictive as hell.
Don't get me wrong, I love Final Fantasy VII's chocobo races as much as the next guy, but Chocobo Hot and Cold is my 'jam.''
So after spending about an hour digging up potions, it's about time to get back to our urgent mission of reinforcing Burmercia against Alexandria's unprovoked invasion, so we head out to Gizamaluke's Grotto. I'm sure our little detour won't have made any differen-okay, the gate's been destroyed and the guards are all dead. Er, my bad, guys.
The doors in Gizamaluke Grotto are opened by ringing bells instead of keys, which is kind of cool, except that the bells disintegrate after being rung. Seems like a rather inconvenient security system, especially since all the invading black mages had to do was take the bells off the guards they killed.
Zorn and Thorn appear, commanding a squad of black mages as they wipe out the remaining defenders, but high tail it out of the joint as soon as we wipe out their flunkies. Progressing through the Grotto is rough without a healer in the party, especially since I just realized that potions don't heal for their full amount when used outside of combat, which is a really baffling change from other Final Fantasies. Of course, the going really gets rough once I free a moogle trapped under a giant bell, and gain access to a room where I can exit the Grotto to a random cliffside which I forgot contained much, much higher level enemies. As in, 1800 damage Firaga-casting enemies, when my toughest party member has under 600 health.
FUUUUUUUUUU.
Next time on the Wryte Way to Play: Gizamaluke Grotto: Take 2.
