Part 43: Great Spear of Mastema

Hello you people. Ready for the next dungeon? Well, hold that thought, because we've got some things to go over first.

Firstly, something happened after we beat Olly. Something I didn't cover in the narrative.



We received the ability to warp. Touching a map page will now instantly teleport us to that area.

Why can we suddenly do this? I don't know. I don't care. Something this convenient, I'm not going to sit here and whinge that it comes out of nowhere.



Which isn't to say I have no complaints. Remember those pages we lost? Apparently all of them came from this chapter, because 80% of our atlas is now missing. It'll be a good while yet before we can warp anywhere we want.

Sadly, warping too falls victim to the clunky UI. How do you find the right map page? Flip through them one by one? Naturally. Also, it costs 50 MP to do, which is less bothersome now that you can warp straight to a magic urn, but it still isn't necessary.

Seriously. Developers. I say this to all of you. If you include a feature purely for the player's convenience, don't charge the player for using it.

You seem to be taking cues from Zelda games. Did Ocarina of Time dock you fifty rupees every time you played the Prelude of Light? No. It fucking didn't. Please consider why that might be.

For all its faults, though, I applaud Avalon Code for including fast travel, even if they did introduce it far too late. More games should be doing this. Backtracking is boredom. Say it with me.



So. Time for some boredom. Before exploring the tower, we'll head back to Lauca's place and pick up some stuff we missed.



This was all here before, but we couldn't do anything with it. No book, you see.

(Axes are functionally identical to hammers.)



Even though I don't like fistfighting, it's a strange relief to travel without the book for a while. You don't have to worry about looking for tablets or scanning enemies or anything like that. Just go where you're going.



Oh, who am I kidding. It's hotspots and sliding puzzles. It's always hotspots and sliding puzzles. I didn't have to hunt for hotspots or do sliding puzzles for two whole chapters and now I do and this LP is back to being work.



goodness, a bugs



These are sort of a hidden boss, triggered through Future Vision and found in the same place you fought Tuoni.

I'm not doing a video for them. They're just a regular monster scaled up, with a shit ton of hit points, and you spam Whirlwind Blade until they die. That's about it. The game doesn't even count them as bosses, so you can Judgment Link them to death if you feel up to it.

Your reward for beating them is...



...right.

Do you want to read my nightmare? My single greatest fear? Would you like to know what O'Brien would subject me to if I ever ended up in Room 101? I can sum it up in one sentence.

"Didja, I want those sliding puzzles solved and on my desk by five."

I just thought I'd share that.



Should you not decide suicide is the better option here, you'll be granted the most powerful sword in the game.

Serious. This is it. Your Ultima Weapon. Your Biggoron Sword. Nothing compares. If our mental map were big enough, we'd be making this right now.

On one hand, I wonder if this was a mistake. You're given this quite early, and there's almost no point collecting any other sword recipe once you have it. And it's not like this is the final Future Vision; there are still plenty more to go.

On the other hand, it's nice to see a game that doesn't withhold your super ultimate bonus weapon until you've already beaten everything.



We also get the best shield in the game, though that was our prize for golding Tuoni. On a roll today!



And look, back in the desert, we can pick up maybe the one bit of headgear I don't want to rub a modeller's nose in!

Headbands raise your attack power. Simple as that. I might wear this, in fact.

Not sure about the colour, though...



There we go. (Red isn't an option, before anyone asks.)



Yes, game. Let's do that.

Now, back to the castle.



This is another key. Small key, big key, and now this. It's impossible to miss because the camera zooms right in on it when you first come here, and it only opens doors that we have yet to encounter.

In short, it makes things more complicated for no reason. The two keys we already have should be enough.

Actually, just one key should have been enough, but I suppose a reality-altering book can't compensate for the fact that key #1 doesn't fit the lock. You know what might have been good, instead of giving us Big Key and Small Key?



That.

Actually, zero keys should have been enough because the whole system does nothing but waste my time, which you can tell is valuable because I'm grousing about video games on the Internet.

Let's just fucking finish this dungeon.



More of the same? More of the same.

Every mission in this dungeon requires the full 4000 for a gold medal. You'd think that'd make it harder, but they also get so generous with points that it barely matters. In the earlier missions, even if you performed well, you'd only just exceed the gold requirement. Now...



...yep.



I'm starting to have doubts about the element system, by the way. In the Torsol video, I claimed it was Fire > Forest > Lightning > Ice > Fire, but I'm using a lightning sword right now, and I actually did less damage after dropping an ice code on this dude.



I swear it used to work the way I said it did. You saw the evidence. I killed lightning chimera in three hits with a forest hammer. I shut down forest Torsol in just two hits with a fire gun. I tried both those bosses without the element codes and I didn't do nearly as much damage. If Fire > Forest > Lightning, lightning must beat ice. Right? There's nowhere else it can go!

But no. Elements don't mean a damn thing and only make an impact when they feel like it. Go Avalon Code.



Sigh.

Remember when I said almost all the tablets after the midway point had puzzles on them? I wasn't kidding. I haven't even showed you all the ones I've found. In making this update, I've had to stop five times to solve a sliding puzzle. SO FAR.

This one is an axe recipe I will probably never use.



And this mission objective is still a lie, folks.



You turn 'em blue, nothing happens. You turn 'em yellow, nothing happens. This time they're supposed to be red, you see? Don't you realise that? Is that not obvious to you? You fucking ass?

You have to do it twice. That's all there is to it. Barring a lucky guess, you have to do these missions twice to get your gold medal. Once to figure out what you're really being asked to do, and the second to do it.



Sliding puzzle count: Six. Also, only three of these tiles actually have stuff on them, and that includes the one you drop in at the end. I mean I can't complain that it literally takes five seconds to solve, but why bother having it, then? Even someone who likes sliding puzzles isn't going to like this.



On the plus side, we can now cosplay as Ur.



Now, do you see how this mission is asking me for 20 toss-ups



And do you see how I did not even have to consider doing that shit

DIFFICULTY CURVES



Sliding puzzle count: Seven.

This is a rapier recipe I will probably never use.



...

I can't even think of an exasperated noise to make anymore. That's it. These doors have crippled my head parts. There is nothing more I can do.



Also, notice there is a lever on the wall here. You will need to be using this lever.



See, if you try to go up the stairs, lightning bolts rain down 'pon thy bonce. Pulling this lever grants you a short period to ascend with your bonce unlightning'd.

This isn't a challenge room, though. This is just something you have to do. Simply an obstacle that's there, and you have to get past it. Like a sort of puzzle. An adventure puzzle. Not a sliding puzzle.

I only bring this up because it's almost something that might happen in a game I actually want to play.



This mission is weird.

You can get gold just by doing the last two objectives, but I don't have any spirits at the moment. It'll have to be the jump ramps.



Except one of the jump ramps is in a cage. How do I get in there? There isn't a switch or a key or anything.

Well, you have to break it. That alone is counter-intuitive. When I see a cage in a video game, I think "open", not "destroy."

But that's not enough. You also have to use Whirlwind Blade. Specifically Whirlwind Blade. Nothing else works.



Who is going to figure that out? I sure as hell didn't. I tried a normal attack and a bomb. Neither of them did anything, so I assumed brute force was not the answer, as would most people. Then I checked a guide and, oops, it is the answer. But a specific variety of brute force, arbitrarily decided by the developers.



The jump ramps aren't even involved in the proceedings. There are no platforms to reach. Using them doesn't make things more challenging. The mission here is "smash all the boxes." Step on the jump ramps, okay, that's done, now I will smash the boxes. That's it.



Can I even blame the designers for this? Sure, they're the ones who made it this way, but responsibility for a project ultimately falls to the management. Someone in charge should have noticed that the designers no longer gave a fuck, and likely never did.



Sliding puzzle count: Eight.

Sword recipe. Not gonna use it. Are you seeing a pattern emerge.



Don't even look at those bonus objectives. As long as you take down the monster generator first (or even second or third) you can finish this mission with points to spare.



I don't get it. By now you already know what those purple tiles are. You know the monsters will keep coming until you destroy them, so if you have any sense, you'll do that before anything else. You'd have to try not to get a gold medal here.



Sliding puzzle count: you bastards, you bastards, just let me die

It's a hammer recipe. I might actually use this one, so that's something.



I agree, magic urn. That's quite enough of that.

PS! Here's a little tidbit you can find in Samiad.



Every desert survival guide I've ever read says not to do this, because it won't help you. When you're dangerously dehydrated, you need water. Lots of it. If you try to stretch it out by drinking less than you need, you'll just die with water left over. This has happened.

So in addition to being bad, this game can get you killed.