It's been a while since the update hit the servers, but I couldn't get my static party up and in shape until last Wednesday. We had already done the introductory cutscenes, and we prepared for the fight (a Blue Mage and several Imperial Gears). My party was made up by Eithin (White Mage), Sechs (Puppetmaster), Necronemesi (Ranger), Mitsuashi (Red Mage) and Daman (Black Mage).

The idea was quite simple: one (me) would carry the Gears along, either Daman or Mitsuashi would sleep the Blue Mage (Amnaf), and then the others would pick the Gears one by one. However the first try was a total failure, due to mistakes also on my part.

We retried after getting the key item again and this time things went smoothly. Well, at least partially, since the Gears' moves are really annoying as they are area-based. Nevertheless (even with Naja Salaheem always picking the wrong targets) we managed to get Amnaf up to the third stage, the Soul Flayer.

That's where it got bad. Soul Flayers suck a lot, especially this one. It had a magic shield up most of the time, so magic was essentially useless. Also, every hit from us caused curse, it had a strong dispelling ability and other annoying moves. We raced against the clock, and won with less than 30 seconds left.

After all though, it was fun. I hadn't that much fun in the game in a long time, and I'm looking forward to mission 44, where the final battle with Alexander will take place. I will try it next Wednesday.

Of course, my brother has provided a video of the mission. You can either watch it embedded below, or download a higher resolution version.

[googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4795807965859545536[/googlevideo]