Ryugasaki Rene Reaches Kuja’s Hideout in Part 6 of a Blind Final Fantasy IX Playthrough

774INC — Ryugasaki Rene took a blind playthrough of Final Fantasy IX (FF9) from the Lindblum council chamber to the villain Kuja’s hideout on Monday, in the sixth part of the series and about five hours of play.

The session opened with a recap of the story so far, built around a relationship chart, and a joke about the part number: the thumbnail and the title had each carried a different one. The game picked up with Garnet unable to speak after the attack on Alexandria. Regent Cid, still stuck in his altered form, was to be restored with three medicines mixed in a 5:2:3 ratio. Ryugasaki gathered them by asking around town, but the mixture turned Cid into a frog instead. Quina, who had gone missing from the party, was found eating through a pickle seller’s stock and was bought out of trouble for 100 gil.

“No, we came back in the second half. We really came back.” — Ryugasaki Rene, after the boss fight

From there the party sailed to the Black Mage Village, where a chocobo egg hatched, and followed Kuja’s directions through quicksand to his hideout. Kuja had Zidane’s companions held and sent him to Oeilvert, a place where magic does not work, to fetch a stone, telling him to bring three fighters. Ryugasaki chose Steiner, Freya and Salamander, a physical-attack lineup. Along the way a darkness-inflicting monster in the sand nearly wiped the party, and a Cactuar hit hard while the party had its back turned, which left Ryugasaki saying the enemy was hated. In Oeilvert, doppelgangers copied party members and killed them off, and Ryugasaki worked out why Kuja had said the party would fight itself.

The boss at the end of Oeilvert kept inflicting confusion, and Ryugasaki rebuilt the party’s accessories in the middle of the fight to guard against it. After Salamander entered Trance and landed a heavy hit, the party won and took the stone.

Back at Kuja’s hideout, Cid solved the hourglass trap that was draining the floor from under the held companions. Ryugasaki then spent the rest of the night in the hideout’s lamp-lighting and puzzle rooms, collecting rings and armor, until a passage that looked like a solid wall turned up the way forward. Ryugasaki said the hideout was fun and signed off there.

FF9 continues on Sunday the 15th at 2 p.m. Japan time. A family visit starting the next day, running through Thursday, will leave few streams that week; the one sure stream is a singing stream on Friday at 11 p.m.