Mt. Bur-Omisace
Cut Scene: A beautiful flying shot of some surreal stone towers piercing the low-hanging clouds. Other chunks of rock float magically. It looks like the cover of a “Yes” album. This is the Grand Kilitias Temple and it looks impressive.
SAND-STREWN PASS > TEMPLE APPROACH > TEMPLE GROUNDS > HALL OF THE LIGHT
SAND-STREWN PASS
Save at the orange crystal.
|| Hour - 27:40 ||
IMPORTANT: From the merchant pig buy six Gold Amulets. They are expensive, but this is one of the most important accessories in the entire game. When equipped all License Points earned will be doubled. This one tool will make leveling up a breeze and an absolute must to speed your game along. If you do not have enough, go hunting for loot now so that each character is always wearing one. In fact, don’t proceed to the next dungeon until you have all six members equipped with Gold Amulets. Remember, even characters that are not in the active party will earn this LP.
Also buy haste from the magic merchant. The map for Paramina Rift is a bit expensive – don’t buy it. I will guide you through the hard bits.
IMPORTANT: Now is a very, very good time to go level up. You need to get a lot of gold to buy all six of those golden amulets and the boss fights from here on out get pretty tough. But the most important reason to level up now is Larsa. I won’t spoil anything but he will be leaving your party soon. I won’t tell you why but it is nothing big like we kill him or he turns into a demon. He just leaves. So this is your last time to fight with him and use his endless Hi-potions. He will make leveling up go much faster. Here are my recommendations:
- LEVELS: Get all of your fighters to level 24
- LOCATIONS TO LEVEL: the snowy PARAMINA RIFTS – if the monsters are too hard, go to GOLMORE JUNGLE and chain the Malboro or Panthers.
- REQUIRED ITEM: The gold amulet – must have it when leveling up to increase your rate of LP earned.
- You may also want to practice your quickenings.
TEMPLE APPROACH
The Mt. Pass is home to a makeshift refuge shanty town. The Empire’s armies don’t dare attack it because of its proximity to the holy ground of Bur-Omisace. The refuges find peace but also a desolate life style. North of here is the Temple grounds. Everyone figures you for a pilgrim because you want to see the Temple.
Cut Scene: Arial shots of the castle. Notice the Large Egg, the many minarets and the grand door. If I were a refuge I would hang out here on the temple grounds.
TEMPLE GROUNDS
The clothing and scenery here is trying to evoke a Shangri-La much like Tibet. The art direction here is quite impressive. I can’t believe the PS2 can render all of this.
Cut Scene: The party arrives in the main hallway of Grand Kiltia’s temple. Everyone goes up and just stares at him because he seems to be asleep. Vaan asks the obvious question and telepathically or using some sort of ventriloquism gimmick he says that he lives in-between the dream and real world – much like Timothy Leary did. He tells Ashe that he has “Dreamt your dream.” He tells her that she is a good person to carry on the Dalmascan lineage and it is good that she wants to restore Dalmasca. Just before Kiltias endorses Ashe as successor to the Dalmascan lineage, my second favorite character in all of FFXII comes in.
Al-Cid Margrace. He is a quasi-Spanish, quasi-ruler, total-lothario who emits Don Juan vibes like others emit stink. I think he actually is how the Japanese picture American Rock Stars: flowing hair, frilly clothes, surrounded by women. But Al-Cid actually comes off as the quirky jack like Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park or Howard Stern. He is so cheesy and clichéd that you have to love the FFXII designers for thinking this would pass.
He comes in and gives Larsa a playful semi-noogie and calls him his little Emperor-in-waiting. I love that and I love this guy! Larsa introduces him as being from the Rozarrian Empire - they were the ones that built the Sandsea oil tankers - just another reason to love him! He approached Larsa to work out a peace deal with the Empire. Foppishly, he gives his assistant his sun glasses – I hope that is her only job because that would be awesome! He then kisses Ashe’s hand, Penelo in the back gets another crush.
Kiltia’s tries to ignore what is going on probably because he has seen Al-Cid’s dreams and they are a bit twisted. He brings everything back on subject by summing up the gravity of this meeting: three ambassadors from three nations all on the brink of war. He says that if they were to find peace together this would be a new age in Ivalice (maybe something like the Dynast-King’s time).
Ashe and Al-Cid counter what Kiltias is saying because he is being too idealistic: they just want a practical solution. All of this talk of compromise is petty, says Cid, because the Emperor was killed. This was the first Larsa heard of this news.
Cut Scene: Emperor’s office in Archadia:
Gabranth rushes past a flurry of guards and voiceovers by Senators reacting to the news. All the judges are gathered in the Emperor’s chambers. Unmasked, they are all arguing with Vayne over the implications of this latest tragedy. Vayne blames his death on a poisoning by the Chairman of the Senate. Sighting national security, Vayne dissolves the Senate and places himself as head of the Empire.
I like to picture the following scene as how the US Supreme Court really decides cases behind closed doors. The honorable Judge Clarence Thomas will be played by Judge Bergan. Judge Drace accuses Vayne of regicide (Vocab word: a mummer is a jester). Zargabaath thinks it’s a good idea to have a dictator in order to react quickly in times of war. Drace places Vayne under arrest. Bergan places Drace under arrest. Drace then denounces Bergan (Vocab 2: a motley is jester’s clothing/hat). Bergan then grabs her by the face. Yes the face. Then he throws her across the room BY HER F’ING FACE. She calls him inhuman. Then he makes a face that looks like Nick Nolte and then growls. I rewound that part like four times; someone needs to make a YTMND for it. If you do, email me at
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Vayne sends Zargabaath and Bergan off to go pickup Larsa. Gabranth protests because if you remember back a few scenes, the Emperor assigned Gabranth as bodyguard for Larsa. Vayne says “oh really why were you tattling on me to my dad?” Vayne then calls him a hound and asks him to execute Drace because she violated the law. Now this gets a little intense for a video game. Gabranth slowly runs Drace through with his sword. Forget the “Partial Nudity” warning by the ESRB, this game should have a “Slow, Painful, Blunt Object Execution” tag. A piece of side boob warrants a “T” rating but showing a slow death is fine?
Back at the Bur-Omisace, Al-Cid brainstorms ways the two empires can handle the new Emperor Vayne. Watch Larsa, you can see in his face that all hope for a logical, peaceful solution have just been destroyed because of Vayne. Al-Cid reports on the advancing Emperial Army. As he talks note the darting camera: Al-Cid even gets his own camera technique!
Addressing the Kiltias, Ashe asks a super loaded question as to whether she should use nethicite against Vayne. She wants to wield the nethicite. It is so shocking Kiltias wakes up and talks. He tells her she needs to get the Sword of Kings, the only thing that can destroy nethicite. Larsa leaves the party to go help his father be less dead. If Larsa is going to leave our party, I want it to be something huge. Like what if he gets bitten by a zombie and then becomes a little emperor zombie (with yellow eyes) but is still our ally and actually eats the brains of other beasts until his arms fall off from decay and then he has to leave to seek the help from the witch princess to restore him.
|| Hour - 28:10 ||
Return back to the Refuge camp and then south through the Paramina Rift. The clan has a new objective to get the Sword that can counter the power of Vayne’s Nethecite.
|| Hour - 36 ||
LEVELING UP TO LVL 24
