Part 2: A Black Wind Howls...

Howdy, folks, and welcome back! Last time, on Breath of Death VII: The Beginning, we started the game and had Sara, the ghost historian, forcibly join our party. Today, we're going to explore a side dungeon and then an actual dungeon, so let's dance.





We're already out on the world map. We're going places! Namely, to that place northwest with the treasure.



There are 200 random battles on the world map,, which doesn't sound like a lot, but you can still dash around, so you move pretty quickly, and random encounters aren't super common.



I used the Fight command there and got into a battle with a couple of fellows that wandered off the set of some Harry Potter ripoff.



70 HP is a lot, but these guys are trees. What do we have that is effective against trees?



Yeah, that's right.



Sara is our agility queen at the moment, so she'll be going first, or damned close to it, for a good long while. Dem, on the other hand, is quite a bit slower than the ghost.



However, true to RPG form, his being slower is backed up by his hitting like a motherfucker.

And since I lit a tree on fire, I have a good excuse to post this clip.





Sara is going to be gaining a bunch of levels this update.



The other option was to increase her Strength, but she's better at magic and not being killed by magic. I'm totally on board with that.



Normally, a fight is denoted by a black square descending on the party. It's not the dope mosaic effect of Mother, but I'll take it.



There's a grammar Nazi reading this that now has an eye twitch that won't leave for several hours.



Beeflies are completely pathetic.



Angry Flowers are angry, and therefore, much tougher.



Don't judge her. She's not supposed to be smacking shit to death.



Though, by the end of the update, she is much better at it.



And in this shot, it looks like she decapitated the Flower!







When it comes to the level up bonus stuff, do you guys want me to show you the two options and one I chose, or just the one I chose?





I chose the single target Boo! because 100% to stun a single enemy are odds that I like. 40% to the enemy party is a little too low for my tastes, and I couldn't be sure I'd stun what I wanted to stun.



We could head straight east and get through the next dungeon and stuff, but remember the lady who mentioned the cave to the northwest with some treasure in it?



It's where we're going first.



We can't cross the mountains, but these little things here, whatever the hell they are, can be crossed.





There are a ton of different types of enemies in this game; we're going to see a good variety in this update alone. Some of them are your standard RPG fare, though.





These guys aren't too tough.



Boo! takes an enemy out of commission for a turn. It's a decent ability for Sara, since she's quick enough that she can incapacitate some real pains in the ass and let you beat the shit out of them.





It only lasts a single turn, though, but that can be enough to avoid a bit of damage or an enemy activating an ability that could prove problematic.









Fishmen!





They can do a good bit of damage and attack before Dem does, and Sara isn't going to kill one of these guys in her turn.



But, by giving you full HP after each encounter, I think that let the developers have a little more freedom in designing enemy encounters and letting them be a little more powerful than they would normally be.



If we head south just a little bit from here, we can actually see Palad-Lennus.



Inside the cave, it looks like a cave.



It's a fairly small cave (and note, it is called a Bonus Cave), and only has 10 battles allotted to it. If I rushed to the end as quick as I could, I could probably hit the treasure and get out and fight maybe three battles.





Like any good cave, it's full of goddamned bats.



And they're about as powerful as they ever are in video games.



As per usual, they're very very fast, but don't hit very hard.



Sara can nearly one-shot them, but Dem has absolutely no trouble taking them apart.







For this level up, I took the extra Agility. Sara is already going to be a magical powerhouse, and a fast one at that, so I'm going to make sure she's as fast as can be.







Maybe three battles was lowballing this a little bit. Then again, I'm halfway through the cave already.



Well, these guys look a little more intimidating already.





Mystic Flies are palette swaps--already!--and just a skosh tougher.



They have this ability, though, which will hit the entire party. It's not supremely powerful, but Sara has a much smaller HP pool than Dem, even if she's taking less damage from magic attacks.



And these douchebags just hit hard.



This early in the game, we're basically just going to smack shit until it's dead.



Which I have no problems with.



Ooh, Dem gained a level!





Dem already has plenty of HP, but he's fairly slow and magic will beat his bony ass. So let's try and fix that.



Sara is nearly Dem's level!





Now, this was kind of a tough choice. On the one hand, being able to cure an entire party at once is pretty nice; 5 MP isn't all that much, either. On the other, being able to heal someone and also cure any status effects is also pretty nice, and Potions can help with the others if they need it, but...

Hell, I took Purity. I'm not really sure why. I'm starting to think that might have been a mistake. Not one that will make me restart this playthrough or anything, but I might regret this in the future. We'll see.



Now, I'm probably going to forget about this in the future, but let's Chat.









See, it's true. You all thought I was just making a joke last update.



Though, how the hell do the other skeletons speak...?



Eh, whatever. Let's grab some treasure.





Hmm, not bad. Sara could stand to be a little stronger...



However, that's not really her specialty, nor something that concerns me. If a mage having low strength bothered me, I'd never get anywhere in these RPG LPs. She's got some things she's really good at, so let's make sure she remains really good at them.



I had six fights left at this point, so I made sure to finish them off. I mean, why not do that?



Now, that sounds pretty good. Enemies being half as fast as they were before? Could come in handy.



However, Rain of Fire is pretty fuckin' cool. Dem casts it once, and from then on, every enemy takes 21 damage, per turn, with no way to mitigate that damage. It also adds to the combo count. Not to mention, it's pretty rockin' to imagine a skeleton raining fire down on some unfortunate fools in his path.





Sara wears Rings for her armor.



Well, that basically doubles her Strength!





She's still nowhere near as strong as Dem, but that Strong Ring did double her Strength. The other 10 comes from her Staff.



With that out of the way, let's get through the plot dungeon.



After we get there, of course.



That is a whole lot of ugly in one party. Yeesh.



I'd have thought a cyborg toad would be a little tougher. Someone in the thread pointed out that it might actually be an undead toad, and that's the skull poking out, and that's probably more correct than cyborg.

However, I prefer to think of them as cyborg toads.



Lizardmen are tough, though. And on the upside, they don't look like Zodiac Killer, who is often reckoned to be a lizard person.



Let's try out our new ability! 15 MP is a bit much out of Dem's pool, but eh, he's not using it for much else.





Meh. Nothing to worry about.



Especially since we've just roasted them to death while hardly lifting a finger.



From there, mopping up the rest of the enemies is pretty easy.



Even though the LIzardman hits like a son of a bitch.













After this battle, I'm makin' waffles!



They're Ogres. What do you want me to say about them?



I mean, they definitely don't like being lit on fire.



Then again, I'm not sure that many creatures enjoy being burned to death.









For me, this one was a no brainer. 60% chance to escape a battle I might need to get the hell away from? No thanks; I'll spend the extra 20 MP to guarantee I'm getting the hell out of there.



I don't plan on doing much fleeing, but if I need to, you can rest assured I'm going to get the hell out of there.



I'm not checking every last one. You're out of your wispy mind if you think that's happening.





Ugh.



That does sound like something my wife would say, now that I think about it.





Twenty five battles? Holy shit. I definitely didn't hit all of those while I was here.





All of the tombstones in this bunch say the same thing. It's a little disappointing, but there are tons of graves around here, so finding something unique for each one would have been a huge pain in the ass.



Heading south, we hit our first encounter.



A spooky ghost!





Sara is much improved at smacking shit with that Strong Ring equipped.





As this is a graveyard, all the enemies are some level of spooky.



Then again, everything in this world is part of the undead, so maybe I could expand that statement to include all of the enemies in the game.



I'm imagining a Wal-Mart built entirely out of tombstones.



North of there is this impassable gorge, so let's head south.





But not before beating up a pair of Crows.





Not much interesting went on in this fight. They're friggin' Crows; what do you really expect?



They're not gigantic assholes, like the Crows in Earthbound.





I should have gone right here. For some reason, I didn't.





Eh, oh well. If I'm missing something important, someone in the thread will point it out.



I can see you--yes, you--typing up the post already.



I sense an odd level of disappointment in this statement.





Zombies can be assholes, but they're not usually too bad.



Their HP is kind of high-ish, but nothing we can't break down.



This is included because the thought of a ghost spooking a zombie to stillness amuses me more than it should.



And then she takes it out with her bonkin' stick.



This is what makes them a little assholish. Poison does a bit of damage each turn.



I'm pretty sure that each round, it does the same amount of damage, but that the damage inflicted is influenced by the amount of HP you had when poison was inflicted. If a fight drags on, poison could make it a pretty dicey affair, but this early, it's nothing to shit yourself about.









Calling those numbers is how you get to drive go-karts with skeletons.





We didn't get much of a look at the Ghost before, but they do have this magic attack. It does a fair bit of damage, and I wanted to be sure I mentioned it at some point.



And since Dem leveled up in that fight, I may as well have.



Hmm. Not bad. Stronger hits on a multi-hit attack is good.



However, this is more hits. Which adds to the combo count, which leads to stronger Deathblows and stuff of that nature. I like being able to boost my combo to absurd levels and skills like this are what can do it for me.





As soon as I took this shot, I went and posted it on Geop's Twitter. I thought he'd appreciate it.







Much like I appreciate finding Gold.



Heading the other way leads us forward.



There's a lot of dead people in this graveyard. And in this world. Why does a world of the undead need a graveyard? It's probably a relic from the world of the living, but what happens to dead things when they die?



And now, a personal battle for Dem.





Or maybe not. There's a few differences between our piles of bones.



This guy is faster than Dem, but nowhere near as strong.



Then again, Dem is using a sword. But if this were Dark Souls, that wouldn't be all that effective.





Oh, come on! That's just lazy!



You basically made a necrophilia joke on the last one, why can't this one have a dick joke or something?



Or something about boners. I mean, they're graves, c'mon!



Then again, that's not exactly this game's type of humor.









I have some shots of me going south from here, then back north.



Why did I take those?



I've posted a lot of Youtube links in this update.



GRANDFATHER NO









Well, that's one hell of an agility boost.



But while that helps Sara out, she's still pretty speedy. I think I've mentioned this before. Dem, and some of our later party members, will need help keeping up, so I take Blessing to help with that.



Excellent. You never know when you'll need a Potion.





There are more graves to the south.



...I don't think that's a joke at all!







That's quite a winding jog just to find a hundred Gold. But, hey, free money.



Heading the other way keeps us going forward and pushes us one step closer to leaving.





We take the left fork from here, to get some more treasure.



That's not a joke, either!



We could have bought one of these back in town, but I think I made the right choice with the Mirror Shield.





On our way back, Dem gains another level.





These are both good choices, but I go with the +10 to all stats. Dem has plenty of HP for now, and his MP pool is just fine for his needs.



The right fork just leads to a save point, which means we're nearly at the boss.







Well, if this isn't a walk to a boss fight, I don't know what is.









Sara also gets the general stats up, but in hindsight, the extra HP and MP might have been more beneficial.



I have musical evidence that suggests otherwise.

Don't give me that look; you can Google "Don't Fear The Reaper" just as easily as I could post the link.





Hmm. I've seen better uses of the line.





It seems a little early to be fighting Death, but I guess we're not playing a Castlevania game.



However, I've got a plan to kick the shit out of him.



Boo! is not part of it, but I thought you'd want to see what it does to bosses.



Grim here is nothing special; he's just a tougher enemy, with more HP and more ability to take your HP away.



He can also steal some of your MP, but since our skills aren't boosting us through battles, that isn't much of an impediment right now.



It's worth showing that bosses are immune to Stun. Not worth much, granted, but there you go.



After another Multi-Strike and a Sara attack, I bust out the Deathblow and put the Grim Reaper down for the count.









The other option was for another 20 Will and Magic, but Strength and Agility will serve Dem better.



Now that's not bad. Being able to hit all enemies at once is pretty good.



But I prefer this one just a bit more. It's a little more expensive, but it hits three times. Random enemies doesn't sound all that good, but if there's only one enemy around (such as a boss), then that jerk is getting hit three times; if there's two, then one of them is getting more fucked up than the other; it might not always hit the targets I want if the enemy group is large enough, but for the most part, I can twist the odds in my favor to smash something good and hard. Plus, it adds 3 to the combo count.





Aww, stop it, you're making me blush.



Hey, she's getting there, Dem.





And now, we're free! And also taking a break, but that's to be expected.

Next time, we'll stop into town and see what's shakin' over there. Stay tuned!