As a break from slightly more serious subjects, let’s talk about Gilgamesh, the best character in Final Fantasy. Our Free Company organized a group to fight him in FF14 over the weekend, and certain things about it seemed really familiar.

Battle on the Big Bridge

Gilgamesh debuted in FF5, where he serves as a minion of Exdeath and general comic relief. (This is important, because a lot of people die during the section of the game that he’s primarily in.) He’s fought four times in actual battles before Exdeath gets tired of his failures and tosses him into the Rift. The second of these introduces Gilgamesh’s now-famous theme, and takes place in a location known only as the “Big Bridge”. Gilgamesh isn’t the only thing you fight here, but he ambushes you as you attempt to go through a door in a watchtower.

As far as FF bosses go, he’s pretty easy. He’s vulnerable to Old, an absolutely crippling status in FF5, and due to the timing you’re quite likely to be using a weapon that can inflict old on hit (it’s the best sword available at that point in the game). For fiesta parties he’s frequently a bit harder, because the -a level spells are starting to wane in effectiveness and it’s right before you reach a town with weapon upgrades.

Speaking of which, you have 11 days to finish the Fiesta. Get to it!

Thrown Into The Rift!

Usually, Gilgamesh is thrown into the rift where he sacrifices himself to defeat the boss guarding the last save point in FF5. However, him getting thrown into the rift is technically optional (Don’t open the chest that contained the Excalipur in Exdeath’s castle) and him sacrificing himself to defeat Necrophobe is also optional (either don’t fight Necrophobe or deal over 9999 damage in a turn to finish him off), so his fate is a little ambiguous. Later games have taken this to mean that he’s a dimension hopping wanderer, making appearances in FF1 (GBA, and versions based on it), FF6 (same as FF1), FF8, FF9, FF12, FF13-2, and FF14. Unlike the other cross-series characters, Gilgamesh acts nearly the same in almost all of these.

Welcome to Eorzea

This brings us to FF14, and a trial so very imaginatively referred to as the “Battle on the Big Bridge”. It’s a bit of a spoiler to explain why you’ve come to this place, but it’s where you face Gilgamesh once again. He even appears right after you open a door, just like in FF5. When fighting him, he takes several of his lines directly from his FF5 lines. His fighting style hasn’t changed much either, with plenty of blue magic and jumps to go around. This is another example of what FF14 is really good at. Along with Crystal Tower, it’s a love letter to several of the previous games in the series. If they continue making content like this (this fight was added in patch 2.2) then I could see myself playing this game for a long time. Maybe Bel’s right, and this can be a new “home” for a while.

For more posts about… everything, check out the Blaugust Initiative. For some D&D math, check out Kodra’s post about DPR for Strength based classes. (Before anyone comments, we both know there’s more to the game than Damage Per Round.)