Part 17: Extras: Passed Over Magic, Unreachable Treasures, and an Alternate Ending

Now that we've completed the game, it's time to take a moment to go back and take a look at some of the expensive magic we passed up on the way here. Trying to backtrack reveals that you can't use the Warp magic at all on the Fortress Top for some reason, probably to keep you from skipping any of the puzzles.



The first step in picking up the rest of our spells is raising some funds by selling off everything we don't need. I may have gone just a bit overboard at this point, but that's okay. It's kind of odd to see a game this old actually allow you to have more than 1,000,000 of anything.



While we're here, it's a good opportunity to pick up the Barrier spell.



What you see here is what you get… a green circle around Varik that reduces incoming damage. It's short in duration, though, so it'd be a pain in the neck to keep casting it. That's the problem with most boosting spells in this game, honestly. Now, you might wonder why we're all the way back in the ruins for this screen shot...



That's because the only two places to buy these spells is back here, in that Magic Shop where the owner was telling us that she doubted we could afford anything. She was right at the time, and without cheating there'd be no way to afford any of these for quite some time after the ruins. In order to get these spells you have to specifically backtrack all the way to Ruins 10 in order to find them. The two options we have are Quake and Stop magic, for a combined cost of 450,000 gold.



To be honest, they're not that impressive. This is Quake, which damages all enemies on the screen but doesn't display anything like a damage marker to let you know how much it's actually doing. It's relatively expensive as well, and it's questionable how much it would help against some of the magic resistant enemies later in the tower.



Time Stop does exactly what it says and freezes all enemies on the screen in place, but for some reason it didn't bother this magician, who just kept throwing fireballs at me without having the decency to realize that he'd been stopped. A lot of people say this is a valuable spell for crowded sections later in the game like dealing with the three Lobsters battle. With that, we're done with magic and it's time to take a look at some of the treasures we had to skip due to not having the Warp magic earlier.



Starting from the top down, the first one we'll look for is in the teleport maze at the beginning of Tower 9F. This treasure was located in a nook next to three other treasure chests, and was the only one that couldn't be reached through trial and error. Instead, if you have the Warp Magic you can get to a space diagonal from the space directly in front of the chest and then transport yourself to that space. This treasure is actually an indestructible Rapier, which would be nice if you weren't about to get one at this point on the next floor.



Down on Tower 6F is the other treasure chest that was unreachable before, and it's a disappointingly regular Falchion. This is another space where the Warp Magic and its ability to get into spaces you can get a diagonal view of is necessary, although even if you have it this isn't even the first time you can find the Falchion. For inaccessible treasures, these are actually pretty sad.



Our final extra is here with Alexis, when she's cornered by the Rakshahsa and is begging for your help. The truth is, you don't have to help her here...



In fact, if you want to you can walk up to her while she's struggling and kill her yourself. It's a bit cold, but she has been trying to kill you the entire time.



Killing her gets you the same key you'd have gotten if you saved her, and she's actually worth a considerable amount of experience as well. I gained a level by killing her this way, and a good bit of satisfaction as well. From here you can continue on and kill the final boss as normal...



Which actually changes the ending. Instead of having an exchange with Alexis, Varik just goes up to the outcrop, looks out on the blue sky and green fields, and then the camera pans down and you go straight to your completion stats. It's a small detail, but it's nice to have the option if you really want it.

And with that, for real this time: