Rydia

But then the next two characters that you meet are essentially good guys.

Rydia, who is a, a young girl who is orphaned at the hands of, uh, Cecil.

I won't say how.

An accident-

Mm-hmm.

And then the third character you meet, Tellah, is this older, not exactly wise man.

[laughs] He's a sort, he's an experienced magic user, and his character in contrast to hers, to Rydia's, is fascinating because, like, his level is already h- very high.

He's like, starts at level 20 or something.

This is the first Final Fantasy where it took the job mechanic and made that a part of who the characters were, too.

You know, the, the, the summoner, uh, the, the summoner character, Rydia, like, she is re- is, is re- is revered in the world because she can summon these great creatures.

Um, you know, s- like I said, Cecil was a dark knight, went to, be- became a paladin later, and he, and, and, and that's representation, and that's re- re- representative of his character change and his morality change and, um, who he, who, who he would go on to become.

Uh, you know, and then the mages, too, though.

Crystal, how does this start off? What is the premise behind this chapter?

Um, this is the true Rydia chapter, after the first Rydia chapter is a little bit more about Luca.

Um, the- Rydia's quest as given to her by her mother's spirits, although you can start it before meeting your mother's spirits, is, um, uh, you have to save all the eidolons and get them into your summon menu, and simultaneously whilst you're doing that you're also, like, saving all the party members who are not yet active.

And once you do all that, you will finally be able to enter Baron Castle.

The way that it cuts back and forth between what you're doing versus what's happening in Baron Castle gives a sense of this chapter taking place on a very narrow timeline.

You save lots of people

...

the, the, the character conflict that I recall most on this section is that Rydia is really, um, compassionate towards the eidolons and, and doesn't want to attack them, and Edge is like, "Hmm.

Are we still looking...

Oh, oh, no, Rydia.

Yeah, Rydia's still missing.

And-

Rydia's missing.

Yes, and taken-

Rosa was taken

But for some reason, um, but because Cecil was dead, I lost the fight because everyone else died.

[laughs]

I was, I was a big Rydia fan and [laughs] because she was an artist, too.

[laughs]

[laughs]

I must remember to download it."

I think, Crystal, I may not have minded the wait between the episodes that we're dealing with this week, but say waiting three weeks between Rydia's tale and Yang's tale from our last recording would have felt quite extended.

If they were one week apart by tale, I think that's the ideal, um, duration of time.

What about you, Crystal?

And then they go back to town and gets attacked by the mysterious girl.

One thing about this whole sequence, Crystal, about Palom's characterization here, is that he kind of surprised me a little bit.

Because, uh, uh, Rydia's chapter had prepared me for the idea that he'd be like he was at the ending of Final Fantasy IV, just a little heartbreaker, maybe even a bit of a womanizer.

But that's not him.

Okay.

So the chapters we played in, in sequence are Ceodore's tale, uh, Kain's tale, Rydia's tale, and we concluded with Yang's tale.

Now, uh, Crystal, the structure of the WiiWare version and all later versions is slightly different than the mobile original, right?

That's right, because originally Kain's tale was one of the later episode releases.

Mm.

It's true.

Like, even Rydia, if we assume that she's, like, supposed to be 16 or 17 in her adult form, is in her early to mid-30s in this game.

That's...