I discover Garland by accident by walking straight up in the Chaos Shrine where he's chillin' out, maxin', and being evil n shit in front of Princess Sarah. He's surrounded by bats and I'm expecting the worst.
"Holy shit, this dude has a whole army of bats that I'm going to have to fight through before I get to him and then they'll have me so beat up that I'll be instakilled by Garland."
I back out immediately because I wasn't ready to have my ass handed to me so early in the game. Back to grinding I go.
I'm level 8 when I decide to take on Garland. I'm preparing myself for a world of disappointment and promising myself NOT TO RAGE QUIT no matter what happens.
HA!
I wipe the floor with that mf. He didn't even get a chance to lay a hand on me. Woohoo for grinding!! His character was cool, though. He's bigger than all of my part put together.
Spiffy!
I go back to the castle (why does everyone have green hair? How many children does the king have? Yikes at these harem implications) and the King is like, "Bruh, thanks." and builds a bridge that connects to some more land to explore and grin in up north of the Castle. I'm hit with the following screen and I know that the game has Officially Started™
I make it to some cave where this weirdo with a single bed resides. They will not let me sleep in this bed and I am so full of rage that I forget what they are even asking for. Oh, so I'm good enough to bust down your doors and still your treasure, but sharing a bed?? That's too much!!
I reach the town of Provaka and immediately head to the shops to gear up. There are some douchey pirates there, too, but I ignore them because there’s gil to be spent. I’m too poor to buy everything I want. Just like in real life.
I focus on grinding and saving up money to buy better gear and it’s all going great. I decide that I’m going to call the whole thing a day and run to the inn.
This innkeeper is trying to charge me 50 gil to sleep a night in her joint.
I'm not about to pay that much money when I KNOW there's a cheaper option, so my brain rationalised that going back to Coneria for a cheaper night’s stay would be well worth it. My stingy ass will soon pay.
First of all, I get lost, lmao, like seriously lost to the point where I am legitimately wondering if I’ve been permanently cut off from Coneria for the sake of forcing the player to progress the story. As though some Bullshit Plot Mountain™ sprouted up the moment I hit an invisible mark on the map getting to Provaka. But nah, I'm just being dumb.
Speaking of dumb, I never run from a fight as a matter of principle and so my characters are progressively getting weaker over time. I pay for my tomfoolery when my White Mage goes down without my permission. OMG I totally wasn’t paying attention! At some point, I contemplate using a phoenix down because the poor thing missed out on levelling up due to being KO’d and all…. but I don't because phoenix downs are too damn expensive and I'm not about to throw 500 gil out the window when I can shell out 80 to some church randy for a revival service...
Them's the breaks! I'm sorry white mage. I also wish that I wasn't so cheap.
I drag Furo’s dead ass all the way to Coneria (finally found the bridge) where I ask the church randy to raise them from the dead and went go sleep for 20 gil cheaper than I would’ve spent had I stayed in Provaka. Furo is now an entire level behind their teammates.
NO REGRETS.