Breath Of Fire: Dragon Quarter Part #10

Part 10: The Regents

Update 10: The Regents

Welcome back. Last time we climbed our way out of LowSector Freight, fighting our way past a number of oversized Dukes on the way. We’re poised to re-enter LowSector Borough, but while we’re taking the elevator the game decides to show us another cutscene of events unfolding elsewhere…

Music: Controllers of the World

The camera pans down from the ceiling, revealing a group of five shadowy figures sitting around a large table.

: But…today is not that day.

A glowing ball of energy appears behind the table, and the camera pans over to reveal that a sixth figure has appeared in the group’s midst.

: A dragon?!

: BioCorp reports that the one that activated is one whose cycle has already ended.

: A reactivation?! But the hosts…the Chosen are supposed to be extinct!

: He has linked with the dragon.

: A grunt? Surely no one with such low potential could be a Chosen?

: I will create a rift in space to seal it away before it sends the world into turmoil.

: Let mortals deal with mortals. I have ordered all high-ranking Rangers to find the boy.

: It is sometimes the history not found in books that is the truest. Here, now, it begins.

The camera focuses on a tapestry resembling the game’s emblem before fading to black.

Well now. It turns out Bosch and Zeno aren’t the only ones concerned by Ryu’s little outburst in EndSector. They’ve received only the briefest of mentions before now, but those shadowy figures are the Regents, the six men and women who make up Sheldar’s ruling council. They don’t seem too pleased with what’s going on, and that can’t bode well for our party.

Music: LowSector Borough

The game returns control to us here, after the elevator drops us off at LowSector Borough.

If you recall, this elevator was broken the last time we were here.

: Don’t break it.

Aside from that, though, LowSector hasn’t changed much in our absence. All three vendors are here, which gives us a much-needed chance to do a bit of inventory management.

We have quite a few items that need identifying.

The Ruby Maser raises Ryu’s Magic by 10 and changes his damage to fire type. It lacks the ability to thread Lv. 3 Skills, but can be useful against enemies that are weak to fire.

Heavy Suits are what Duke Battlers drop when you don’t destroy their armour. They provide a significant defensive boost in exchange for weighing Ryu down and cutting his movement. Four out of our six unidentified items are Heavy Suits.

Light Clothes are the opposite of Heavy Suits, reducing defence in exchange for boosting movement.

After selling off unneeded duplicates it’s off to see what Arma’s selling.

She has a decent selection. There are a few bits of outrageously overpriced garbage like the Mandau Blade (a mere +5 attack bonus, three free Lv.2 and Lv.3 Skill slots but only Slice for Lv. 1), but there are a few things worth purchasing this time around.

Here’s what the party looks like when I’m done. Ryu gets the Ruby Maser in a reserve slot and exchanges his Bind Gear for a Heavy Suit. I also upgrade his active shield to a Ranger Shell+1 and his active armour to a Ranger Suit+2.

I buy the Glacier+3 for Nina, which has Frost permanently threaded to it. She now has access to all three basic elements. I also give her the Light Clothes since movement is ultimately more useful to her than defence.

Lin gets a shield and armour upgrade. Nothing too fancy, but necessary nonetheless.

Since we’re back why don’t we check out how our fellow LowSector residents are doing?

: I could take my grandson to a higher level, with better air. Koff, koff!

: I’d only be a grunt with my D-Ratio! Life can be so cruel…

Don’t worry, kid. Going by personal experience, there’s every chance you’ll stumble across the remains of a long-dead dragon during a routine mission and wind up becoming a jRPG protagonist.

:…at the bottom of LowSector?

:…that found its way in again.

Rumours are spreading about what happened in EndSector, but it doesn’t look like any concrete details have emerged. No doubt Zeno and the Regents are doing a bit of information control to make sure the truth doesn’t get out.

Music: Ranger HQ

:…but the lift isn’t coming. What’s up?

Naturally the party’s actions have had a significant knock-on effect.

: I don’t know what you did, but you’ve been relieved of your duties as a Ranger. I can’t let you pass through here.

So, Ryu has been kicked out of the Rangers. Not at all unexpected given what’s transpired. Meh, most of the other Rangers were condescending smuglords anyway.

:…it’s faster to go to LowSector and use the entrance there. You’re a Ranger, so you have an ID Card, right?

Well, Ryu was expelled from the Rangers, but it happened fairly recently. Will his ID still work? Guess there’s only one way to find out.

: If you’ve got business at the BioCorp Labs, go on through!

We’ll be doing just that in a moment, but first…

I stop by the item shop and buy 10 Multimeds. This is very important for reasons that will become apparent very soon.

Somewhat ominously, the music cuts out completely as soon as we step through the door.

The BioCorp Labs are a small area, at least at first. From the entrance we can either go through a door to Ryu’s left or continue on down another passage ahead.

Taking the door leads to a long L-shaped corridor with a locked door and a card reader at the end.

Unfortunately Zeno was competent enough to void Ryu’s ID Card when she kicked him out of the Rangers. It doesn’t look like we’re going to be getting in this way.

The other corridor leads to two small rooms. The first contains three crates with two Antidotes and 400 Zenny.

The second triggers a cutscene when you try to open it.

Someone hammers on the door from the opposite side.

Someone seems to be trapped inside. Let’s help them out by opening the door.

:…but I have to pull to get back out? What a mystery!

Behind the door we find a fairy! Fairies are a recurring species that have appeared in nearly every Breath of Fire game to date. In the first game they had a minor role, casting a spell on a lumberjack who was cutting down their forest to supply the Black Dragons with cheap timber. They had a much greater role in later instalments, particularly the third and fourth games in which managing an entire Fairy Village was a major sidequest.

Rewards are always nice, so let’s go for it.

: Good! Close yoor eyes and clench yoor teeth!

The screen darkens, accompanied by loud scraping and bashing noises. When the screen flashes back to reality…

Music: The More We Dig

: We’ll keep yoo busy here, I promise! I’ll explain what yoo need to know…

Welcome to the Fairy Colony. The Fairy Village I mentioned earlier? This is Dragon Quarter’s version of it. The Fairy Colony is a very lengthy sidequest that yields some incredible rewards if you follow it through to the end, but it’s also a pretty hefty time sink and going into it now would break the flow of the LP. I’ll definitely dedicate some updates to it in the future, probably as part of the New Game+ run I have planned.

: If yoo want to see us again, come and find me in town!

:…outside of town, use these Fairy Drops! They’ll take yoo to the Colony from anywhere!

The game gives us back control after giving us the Fairy Drops.

There’s nothing else we can do here, so we might as well leave. Exiting the labs triggers a scene, however.

The party steps outside, straight into a cloud of toxic gas.

The camera pans, revealing three rangers wearing gas masks standing nearby.

: Rangers? So, we’ve become wanted.

Ryu shakes his head, struggling to believe that his former allies are now trying to kill him.

:…tell the boss about you. And we figured…

: Bringing you in would give our reputations a nice little boost.

The leftmost Ranger taps the gas canister with his foot.

:…for you to come through here.

Nina begins to cough violently as Ryu glares at the Rangers.

: You used gas for this? What about the townsfolk?!

:…genics. Perfect for Low-Ds too.

Old man.

: Just being cautious, you know.

And with that, we enter a battle against the three Rangers.

Music: Formidable Foe

This fight was tough for me, and not only because the enemies are actually pretty hard. The game slaps some kind of foggy overlay on the screen to represent the poison gas, which caused my emulator to violently shit itself and tank my frame rate into the low teens. I managed to struggle on through, but it was a royal pain in the arse.

The poison gas doesn’t just cause my computer to choke either. At the beginning of every turn the game checks the status of every combatant, friend or foe, then adds the Poison status to them. This effect is 100% accurate and can only miss if a character is already poisoned or else immune to the status. The three enemy Rangers are all wearing gas masks and therefore resist the check - you can just about see the ‘Guard’ message in the upper right corner of the last screenshot.

Since we don’t have any gear that will let us resist Poison we’re basically forced to suffer through it for the whole fight. It’s possible to use items to cure it, but it’ll just be reapplied at the start of the next turn anyway, and the damage isn’t too awful. It’s more of a gimmick than a real threat.

Of the three actual enemies we have to deal with the sword-wielding Battler Lieutenant is probably the most dangerous. He has around 600 HP, a large movement range and a regular attack that consistently deals around 50 damage to Ryu and Lin and about 80 to Nina. He also has several nasty skills including Act Delay which reduces speed and Cutspace which lowers movement, and enough AP to consistently attack twice per round.

The Gunner Lieutenant isn’t nearly so tough, but his range means you can’t really lead him into Nina’s traps like you can with the Battler Lieutenant.

He’s also capable of inflicting several nasty status effects. Viral Touch inflicts Virus, which halves AP recovery, while Dreamer puts a party member to Sleep.

The Mage Lieutenant can cast Iceblast, so it’s best not to cluster up.

If you get too close he’ll bust out Shazam, a huge tornado that doesn’t deal any damage but inflicts a significant amount of knockback.

He can also use Aid Kits to heal himself and his allies. According to GameFAQs he also has a spell called Hundredgears that causes exactly 100 damage and inflicts Stun, but I’ve never seen him use it.

This battle can be pretty hard. All the enemies have a decent amount of HP and their abilities and tactics complement one another rather nicely.

One tactic that works quite well is to have Nina cast Joltball. It’s an electric version of G-Flare, but with a very useful twist - any enemy that steps on one has a chance of being paralysed and missing their turn.

Once that’s done you can simply wail on them with everything you’ve got.

If you can get them all bunched up and fire off an area of effect attack like Nina’s Frost or Lin’s Blow Up!, so much the better.

Finally, after a whole fifteen minutes of screen-chugging action the last one dies and the next cutscene rescues my computer from stuttering oblivion.