Part 8: Make it Stop

Chapter 8: Make it Stop



Mine time. You guys excited? I'm excited. No, I'm so not excited, and I just can't hide it.

First off, for once, the party chat here is kind of interesting.


A human and beast dating! You're the first I've met... But you make a lovely couple.
A... couple...?! Are you kidding?! Me and Jian?! Whatever gave you that idea?!
Oh... sorry, I just thought...
And anyway, what about Lucia, huh? Jian and Lucia are...
...Lucia...
...What's wrong?
Oh, no... It's nothing. Well, let's head for Sandra Desert!

Flora, you were fucking there when Jian heard that Lucia was kidnapped and went all "I HAVE TO GET HER BACK I LURVE HER." Why would you see that and think "yeah, he's dating the beast girl." Then again, she did say that "you and your two girlfriends" so I guess she's very open minded. Huh.

Anyway, this fucking dungeon.



The mine is littered with openings like this.



And this. Neither of which go anywhere. I swear, every time this confuses me.

You may notice the blue chests. There are three blue chests here, and three different screens. So if I want them, gotta clear the whole dungeon on Virtue, yaaaaaay.



The topaz increases attack and defense. I guess Gab can use it. Gabryel's attack power is around Jian's, actually, but because she doesn't get the three hit combo she's not that useful, Jian will always have about three times the attack she does.



At least her Gale Cut will kill a lot of enemies in one hit. It won't take down some of the stronger enemies, but even still, with Gale Cut a battle will only take around two or three rounds at most. That's downright speedy for this game. At least with the HP/MP restore that clearing a room on Virtue give you Gab will have enough MP to pull this out one or twice a room. That... helps. Whatever helps.



And Flora's not really helping right now.



At least doing this dungeon on Virtue allows Flora to catch up. By the end, she's more or less on equal footing. When I finished with the first room, Flora was already at level 10 and had all of Lucia's spells. No, she doesn't get any spells Lucia that didn't. And no, she's not really going to be a much better attacker than Lucia was.

By the way, Flora has absolutely no problem casting spells, despite this being the Frontier. That time Lucia's spell failed is the only time it ever seems to happen.



Back to this dungeon. It's is a pain in the ass to do on Virtue. Each screen doesn't have a lot of enemies. That sounds nice, but it also makes it so it's hard to keep the timer up.



This pit, for example, may not look that big, but since you move so slow it takes a long time to circle it. And you kind want to look all around, since you're never sure where an enemy spawns.



It's hard to tell how spread it all is unless you've seen a map, but now I'm on the far end of the map, no enemies in sight, only one enemy left, and no idea where this enemy is.



I eventually found it in an area I had already cleared out. Make note of the timer. I was fucked. Also, for some odd reason, when it got off screen, it despawned. I don't know why, I had already lost a check, the game didn't need to kick me while I was down. Yeah, I reset and did this again.



Wait a sec, Jian got blinded? Don't I have something that protects against that?



Yeah, apparently equipment that protects against status ailments doesn't give 100% protection. Not that the game tells you this. I hate this game.



But I got it. This is arm-wear for Gabryel; she's actually got higher defense than Jian right now, since he's still got low-tier arm-wear. One down, only... two more to go. Yaaay.



Hey, you wanna know what is an exit? This. Red circle added by me, uh, obviously.

So is the next room easier to clear?





What do you think?



Accidentally go down a dead end? Unless you've been running, you've wasted so much time an enemy's going to spawn in. Uuuuuurgh. Yeah, I had to try this one twice, too.



...eh. Improves defense and luck. Not bad.

Fortunately, the last room is a lot more linearly laid out and a lot easier to clear.



Increases agility and luck. Also very "eh."



Hot damn.



And finally, we get some nice arm-wear for Flora. Yay.



And you know what we get to do now? More dungeon. Yaaaaaaaaaa



aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa_{aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay}



And more fucking blue chests.

I looked it up, and all it has is an angel tear. Angel Tears are 300 silver. I'll pass.



The second I decide to do this, however, is when every enemy in the area decides to dogpile me. You see the lighter, sandy areas? They slow you down. Yay, another thing that makes you slower. It might have been faster if I had cleared this out on Virtue, since I just kept getting into fights.



Thanks for that. I was just so eager to get out of this fucking room I just decided to keep going. It wasn't a great piece of equipment anyway.



The next area has another fucking blue chest. However, it gives me a piece of equipment I already have. Skip.



MP restoring items in this game are kind of rare, actually. You can't buy any MP restoring items, not even the lowest tier. However, I haven't mentioned that items restore based on percent rather than any set amount. That works for HP, but since your MP totals are so poor it's not great for MP. Cards are better for MP restoration anyway.



Hey, a hidden chest. Just a healing drop, though.



There's a side room over here.



And it's full of monsters. For some reason I thought maybe there was a blue chest in this room, and I half-way cleared it. There's not.



But hey, money.



This chest here requires us to go into the next area, go up, and back in. This is the first time in the game that it's required for us to go into another room and go back in a different way to get a piece of treasure.

I occurs to me how absurdly simple dungeons layouts actually are in this game, yet they're still major pains in the ass. It's just that when you have a mechanic that puts a time limit on killing monsters and penalizes moving quickly, any complexity in dungeon layout becomes a major hurdle. And it's kind of sad, since the clearing rooms/blue chest mechanic isn't a bad idea, to be honest, but every other facet of gameplay makes it an utter chore.



You can go down the sand falls (of course it's one-way)



And you get another piece of headgear for Jian. I'd normally want to keep the blind protection from his current bandanna, but it barely seems to work, so I switch.

However, if instead of falling down those sandfalls you keep going traveling up on the hillside, it takes you to the first room.



And another piece of treasure. It regenerates MP. That sounds really nice, but it's only 1 MP a round. Still, Flora could use this.

The sandflow in the screenshot is a one-way pass back to the beginning of the dungeon. Considering that if we wanna go back to town we gotta backtrack through both of these dungeons, at least they throw you a bone here. Although still have to walk through the mines again, and there's no easy way out of that. I'd rather just keep moving forward.



...Jian, I fucking hate you.

Back to the village...? Jian, don't tell me you plan on going alone!
...
No way! I'm going with you! How're you planning on fighting alone?! You won't even make it inside! You can't just send me packing now, OK?
Which means... I'm going too.
I'm happy to hear you say that... But you'll only get in my way. I have to carry on alone. I'm sorry.
What was that...? Get in your way, will I? Well, Jian, what a burden I must have been! So good of you to have put up with me for so long! Flora, we're obviously just unwanted baggage. Let's go.
...OK...







Heeeey guys! You know what this means? Another fucking dungeon, but now we're alone because Jian's a stupid idiot. I mean, maybe it makes a little more sense than Cecil trying to leave the women behind in FF4, since Gabryel and Flora are no Rydia and Rosa, but at least Cecil wasn't planning on going totally alone. Also I do use Gab's Gale Cut and Flora's healing every once in a while, so they have some use. Jian's a moron.



Dumbass.

Anyway, I haaaaate this dungeon. I thought I hated the first two of this update, but no I had not even begun to hate.



First off, we got geysers. What do they do? When you're hit, they reverse your d-pad input for a few seconds. That's just lovely. It's actually fairly brief, and it wears off faster than the similar control-reversing shit Lunar SSSC pulled on you, but a bad idea is a bad idea. The game also loves to put these at choke-points.





Also, it's again hard to tell from a few screenshots, but this dungeon is a labyrinthine mess. Normally, I wouldn't complain that much about it, but...



Blue chest. The enemies spawn very far apart, and it's hard to tell where you're going and where an enemy will spawn in. It is a pain. In any case, Jian has no business going for this chest, not without his meatshields friends.



And no, the game doesn't give you smaller enemy groups just because you're alone. Yeah, I ended up running from a lot of fights.



But once you get past the first room, you run into some Vile Tribe folk. Also, hey, Vile Tribe dude, you're all right.

What have you done with Lucia?!



Are you calling Gab bisex- oh, he was going to say "bitch."

Silence! I swore to protect her... which means every last one of you is going to pay for what you've done!


...I'll take as many of you with me as I can!
Like he said, you got guts, but you're dumb. You think you can take even one of us? You're dreaming. Now wake up. It's time to die.
...!



And suddenly, a sword comes flying out of nowhere!

...ouch!
Huh?! What just happened?
Where... where did that sword come from?!
Now I want a little payback myself! Come on out! Show yourself!





...but you just threw your sword.


You can thank me later, after we've dealt with the rest of these goons! Rufus, take that side! Jian, pull yourself together! You're with me!
Gabi...!
Can't say I'm surprised to see you again, Rufus. Shame. For a while, I really thought you were dead.
Well, my apologies... I do profess to a talent for not getting killed.
That's nothing compared to my talent for killing! I'm gonna make sure your head is completely off this time! No mistakes! Try your best, but I doubt it will be enough. You see, I don't want to die.

The game actually thinks that sounds badass...



Boss fight time. And holy shit, there's a new character here and he's not at level one! Hallefuckinglujah.

So Rufus, what's he do? Well, like Gab he's only got one ski-



Love you too Lunar Dragon Song.

Anyway, Rufus basically gets Gale Cut, but it's called Thunder Sword and has a different animation.



I can't say no to another skill that hits all enemies. However, he only has 22 MP for this 10 MP skill. I don't know why I'd expect any differently at this point.



Stupidly, I didn't think this was actually a boss fight, so I didn't do any buffing with the cards until I realized "this is taking a longer time than usual."



It got a bit hairy.


Gabi, are you OK?
Yeah, I'm fine! How about you, Jian? All in one piece?
Yeah, of course!
...
Rufus, look...
Say no more, Jian. I know you don't think much of us beastmen. I can live with that. But...
Enough already! You really think that matters any more? We're friends now! Comrades! Does human this or beast that really make any difference? No! Not at all!
...Friend?
...Comrades?

I'm starting to long for the friendship speeches of Tales of Graces.





All right, now that's done with, and we're no longer alone. Hey, we've got a new party member to check out.



While Rufus has decent equipment and we don't have to train him from level one, he's not great. Actually, he's the weak link here, by far. Also, since we don't have anyone who can cure, or HP restoring cards, we're completely reliant on items. Also, while I usually never bother curing status ailments in battle, poison doesn't automatically go away. If I run out of antidotes and get poisoned I am fucked. I could walk back to town, but... backtracking through two dungeons.

Anyway, I go back to the first area to get the blue chest there. More Virtue time! You know that Virtue is supposed to be sacrificing monsters to the Goddess Althena? She doesn't seem like she'd be into that.



You see these odd rock formations on the sides here? They're ladders. I didn't realize that at first. I actually missed an area off to the side.



That's a poison swamp, it leeches off HP as you walk in it, but it doesn't take HP off that quickly.



This is for our pal Rufie. Most of the treasure in this dungeon is equipment for Rufus.



This is the worst. You're trying to find another monster to keep the timer, and you walk for a good thirty seconds without seeing hide or hair of one, and when you do, it's on a ledge I don't immediately know how to get to. I hate this shit.

Monster spawns aren't set, but damned if I know what determines where they spawn in. I've had times where all the enemies practically spawn in at one point, and other times you have to run all the way across the screen to get all of them.

The worst part is that monsters are getting tougher, and Gabryel's Gale Cut isn't coming remotely close one-hit killing anything.



Anyway, I finally got the chest. Armor for Rufus. The other blue chest is also armor for Rufus.

Oh yes, there's one last screen to go, and another blue chest. Joy joy joy.



First, back in the area where we fought the boss (no monsters here, thank goodness), there's this. It cures all status ailments.



Anyway, the final area of the dungeon is even harder to keep the timer rolling. It's even bigger, and it only has five enemies.



And when you're trying to hunt down enemies, the last thing you need is your controls remapped. I hate this dungeon.



By the way, if you accidentally leave the dungeon entirely while you're in the middle of clearing a room out?



You don't keep your progress. Fuck

Oh, oh but I can do one better. I fucked up, and when I reloaded I realized my last save was right after the boss and getting Rufus, before I had cleared out the first room.

...

...I had to stop playing for a while.

Ultimately, I decided that: You know what? Fuck you Rufus. Even with improved equipment you're an inferior Gabryel. I'm not going for those chests. Fuck you. Fuck. You.



Despite that, I did decide to go for this sword. I figured, it's not a blue chest, and I don't wanna go back for the helmet, so I might as well throw him a bone. His attack power is still inferior to Gab's.





Past the swamp, there's this ring that increases intelligence and luck. I dunno if it's really worth crossing the swamp for it, but there you go.



It turns out that doing this on combat was a good idea, because I got this sorely needed card.

Anyway, after grabbing that treasure I high tailed it the fuck out of there.



Guuuuuess what? It's... four dungeons in a row!

We're done for today.